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THE  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

IN  THE   EEVOLUTION 

1780-1783 


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THE   HISTORY 

OP 

SOUTH    CAROLINA 

IN 

THE    REYOLUTION 
1780-1783 

BY 


EDWARD  McCRADY,   LL.D. 

A  MEMBER  OF  THE  BAR  OF  CHARLESTON,  S.C.,  AND   PRESIDENT 

OF  THE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

AUTHOR  OF   "the  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA  UNDER  THE  PROPRIETARY 

GOVERNMENT,"    "THE   HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA   UNDER   THE 

ROYAL   GOVERNMENT,"   AND   "  THE   HISTORY   OF  SOUTH 

CAROLINA  IN  THE  REVOLUTION  —  1775-1780  " 


THE   MAClVnLLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1902 


All  rights  reserved 


^1 


Copyright,  1902, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotypcd  August,  1902. 

SPfiECKELS 


Norfajooli  Press 

J.  S.  Cuihing  ii  Co.  -  Berwick  tt  Smith 

Norwood  Ma88.  U.S.A. 


AUTHORITIES   CONSULTED   AND   QUOTED 

Abridgment  of  the  Debates  of  Congress.     Vol.  I.     1789-1796.     Benton, 

New  York,  1857. 
American  Loyalists.     Lorenzo  Sabine.     Boston,  MDCCCXLVII. 
American  War,  History  of  the.     C.  Stedman,  London.     I.  Murray,  1794. 

2  volumes. 
Annals  of  Newberry  District.     John  Belton  O'Neall,  LL.D.     1859. 
Annual  Register  or  lleview  of  History,  Politics,  and  Literature,  for  the 

years  1780,  1781,  1782. 
Army  Regulations,  U.S. 
Articles  of  War,  U.S. 

Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States.     Editions  of  1852-1883. 
Bay's  South  Carolina  Reports.     Law. 
Botta's  History  of  the  War  of  the  United  States  of  America.    Translated 

from  the  Italian  by  George  Alexander  Otis.     2  volumes.     1834. 
British  Military  Library.     London,  1799. 
Brown,  Tarleton,  Memoirs,  Barnwell,  S.C. 
Campaigns  of  1781  in  the  Carolinas.     Henry  Lee.     Philadelphia,  F.  Littell, 

1824. 
Clinton-Corn wallis  Controversy  growing  out  of  the  Campaign  in  Virginia, 

1781.     B.  F.  Stevens.     London,  1888.     2  volumes. 
Collections  of  the  South  Carolina  Historical  Society.     4  volumes. 
Colonial  and  Revolutionary  History  of  Upper  South  Carolina.     Landrum. 
Crimean  War,  History  of.     Kinglake. 

Curwen's  Journal  and  Letters,  1775-1784.     New  York,  1845.    3d  edition. 
Diary  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr.,  an  Exile  to  St.  Augustine,  MS. 
Documentary  History  of  South  Carolina.     Robert  W.  Gibbes.     3  volumes. 
Doyle,  Sir  Francis,  Reminiscences  and  Opinions,  1813-1885.     Appleton, 

1887. 
Drayton's  Memoirs  of  the  Revolution.     John  Drayton,  LL.D.    1821.     2 

volumes. 
Eraser,  Charles,  Reminiscences  of  Charleston. 
Garden's  Anecdotes  of  the  Revolutionary  War.     Charleston,  1822. 
Gazette,  The  Royal. 

The  South  Carolina,  and  General  Advertiser. 
The  South  Carolina  Weekly. 


100293 


vi  AUTHORITIES   CONSULTED   AND   QUOTED 

Gordon,  W.,  History  of  the  American  Revolution.     London,  1788.     4 

volumes. 
Greene,   Nathanael,  Life  and  Campaigns.     C.    Caldwell,   M.D.     Phila- 

delphia,  1819. 
Life.     William  Gilmore  Simms. 
Life  and  Correspondence.     Hon.  William  Johnson.    Charleston,  1822. 

2  volumes. 
Major-General  of  the  Army  of  the  Revolution.     George  W.  Greene, 

Boston,  1849. 
Great  Commander  Series.      Francis  Vinton  Greene.     New  York, 

1893. 
Gregg,  Right  Rev.  Alexander,  History  of  Old  Cheraws.     1867. 
Historical  Register  of  the  Continental  Army.     Heitman.     Washington, 

1893. 
Johnson,  Joseph,  M.D.,  Traditions  and  Reminiscences  of  the  Revolution 

in  South  Carolina.     Charleston,  1851. 
Kent's  Commentaries. 

King's  Mountain  and  its  Heroes.     Draper.     Cincinnati,  1881. 
Lacey,  General  Edward,  Life  of.    M.  A.  Moore,  M.D.     1854. 
Laurens  MSS.,  South  Carolina  Historical  Society. 
Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors.     Campbell.     Vol.  VII. 
London  Remembrancer,  or  Impartial  Repository  of  Events. 
Lossing's  Field  Book  of  the  Revolution.     New  York,  1852.    2  volumes. 
Magazine  of  American  History,  with  Notes  and  Queries.      Edited  by 

]\Iartha  J.  Lamb.     Vol.  XII.     1884. 
Marion,  Francis,  Life  of.    William  Dobien  James,  A.M.    Charleston,  1821. 
Life  of.     William  Gilmore  Simms. 
Life  of.     M.  L.  Weems.     Philadelphia,  1851. 
McCall's  History  of  Georgia.     Savannah,  1811.     2  volumes. 
Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776.     Henry  Lee.     Edition  of  Robert  E.  Lee. 

1870. 
Moore's  Diary. 

Morgan,  General  Daniel,  Original  Report  of  Battle  of  Cowpens. 
Morris,  Gouverneur,  Life  of.     Jared  Sparks.     Boston,  1832. 
Moultrie's  Memoirs    of    the  American    Revolution.     New  York,   1802. 

2  volumes. 
Myers,  Mr.  T.  Bailey,  of  New  York,  Collection  of. 
North  Carolina  in  1780-1781.    David  Schenck,  LL.D.     Raleigh,  1889. 
Orangeburg  County,  History  of.     A.  S.  Salley,  Jr.     1898. 
Parliamentary  History,  1781-1782.     Vol.  XXII. 
Pamphlets,  Charleston  Library.     5th  Series.     Vol.  II. 
Pinckney,  Eliza,  Women  of  Colonial  and  Revolutionary  Times.     Mrs. 

H.  H.  Ravenel.     Scribner  Series,  1897. 


AUTHORITIES   CONSULTED   AND   QUOTED  Vll 

Pinckney,  General  Thomas,  Life  of.  By  Rev.  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinck- 
ney,  D.D.     1895. 

Ramsay,  David,  M.D.,  History  of  South  Carolina.     1809.     2  volumes. 
History  of  the  Revolution  in  South  Carolina.     1785.     2  volumes. 

Russell's  Magazine,  Charleston.     Vol.  IV. 

Simms,  William  Gilmore,  History  of  South  Carolina.     Edition  1840-1860. 

South  Carolina  Historical  and  Genealogical  Magazine.  A.  S.  Salley,  Jr., 
editor. 

South  Carolina  under  the  Royal  Government,  1719-1776.  McCrady. 
1899. 

South  Carolina  in  the  Revolution,  1775-1780.     McCrady.     1901. 

Southern  Review,  Charleston,  S.C.     Vol.  L     1828. 

Statistics  of  South  Carolina.     Robert  Mills.     Charleston,  1826. 

Statutes  of  South  Carolina. 

Strictures  on  Lieutenant-Colonel  Tarleton's  History.  By  Roderick 
McKenzie,  Lieutenant  Seventy-first  Regiment.     London,  1787. 

Sumter,  General  Thomas,  MS.  collection  in  possession  of  Miss  Mary 
Brownfield,  Summerville,  S.C. 
Letters  of,  in  possession  of  William  Nightingale,  of  Brunswick,  Ga. 
Certified  copies  of  same  in  possession  of  South  Carolina  Historical 
Society. 

Tarleton's  History  of  the  Campaigns  of  1780-1786  in  the  Southern  Prov- 
ince of  North  America.  By  Lieutenant-Colonel  Tarleton  of  the 
British  Legion.     London,  MDCCCXXXVIII. 

Two  Wars.     An  Autobiography.     S.  G.  French. 

United  Service  Magazine,  September,  1881.  The  Battle  of  Eutaw  Springs. 
J.  Watts  de  Peyster,  Major-General,  N.G.N.Y. 

Washington,  George,  Washington  Irving's  Life  of.    New  York,    1855. 
4  volumes. 
John  Marshall's  Life  of.    Philadelphia,  1804.     5  volumes. 

Washington's  Writings.    By  Jared  Sparks.     Boston,  1837.     12  volumes. 

Watson,  Richard,  Anecdotes  of  the  Life  of. 

Wheeler's  History  of  North  Carolina.    Philadelphia,  1851. 

Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History.  The  War  in  the  Southern  De- 
partment.    By  Edward  Channing. 

Wraxall's  Memoirs.     London,  1818. 

Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston.     Hon.  J.  Adger  Smyth.    1899. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

General  Gates  removed  from  command  of  Southern  Department  — 
General  Nathanael  Greene  appointed  in  his  place  —  Sketch  of  General 
Greene  —  gis  appointment  solicited  by  the  delegates  in  Congress  of  the 
Southern  States  —  Greene  leaves  West  Point  for  his  new  command  — 
Receives  his  instructions  from  V/ashington  —  Arrives  in  Philadelphia  — 
Unsuccessfully  appeals  to  Congress  for  assistance  —  Obtains  some  help 
from  Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania  —  His  department  enlarged  to  in- 
clude Delaware  and  Maryland  —  Major  Henry  Lee  promoted  lieutenant- 
colonel  and  ordered  to  join  him  —  Greene  proceeds  to  the  South  —  His 
staff  —  Cornwallis's  position  at  Winnsboro  —  Leslie  diverted  from  Virginia 
to  reenforce  him  —  Greene  reaches  Charlotte  and  assumes  command  — 
Finds  Morgan  in  the  field  with  an  independent  corps  detailed  by  Gates  — 
Organization  of  rest  of  Gates's  army  —  Affair  at  Rugeley's  Mills  —  Wash- 
ington captures  the  post  —  Number  and  condition  of  army  found  by 
Greene  —  Colonel  Davie  accepts  the  appointment  as  commissary  general 
on  his  staff  —  Greene  moves  his  army  to  Cheraw  —  His  sanguine  views  in 
regard  to  the  position  —  Leslie  arrives  at  Charlestown  with  his  command 
—  Marion's  activity  meanwhile  —  Reports  to  Greene  Leslie's  arrival  and 
inarch  to  Camden  —  Career  of  Major  Dunlap  —  He  raids  Pickens's  and 
McCall's  plantations  —  Pickens,  regarding  himself  released  from  the  en- 
gagements of  his  parole,  comes  out  and  joins  Morgan  —  The  case  of 
General  Williamson  —  Washington  attacks  and  defeats  party  of  Loyalists 
at  Hammond's  Store,  and  Cuningham  at  Williamson's  plantation  on  Little 
River. 

CHAPTER  II 

Position  of  parties  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1781  —  Cornwallis 
sends  Tarleton  to  look  after  Morgan  and  advances  himself  from  Winns- 
boro to  Turkey  Creek,  where  Leslie  joins  him  —  Tarleton  outmanoeuvres 
Morgan  on  the  Pacolet  and  forces  him  to  fall  back  —  Crosses  the  river 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

and  pursues  Morgan  —  Morgan  halts  at  Cowpens  and  prepares  to  give 
battle  — The  force  on  each  side  —  Morgan's  position  criticised,  his 
justification  of  it  condemned  —  His  masterly  disposition  when  forced 
to  battle  — His  order  of  battle  —  Description  of  the  battle  —  Tarleton 
utterly  defeated. 

CHAPTER  III 

Morgan's  conduct  to  Sumter,  the  origin  of  the  hostility  of  Greene 
to  the  latter  — Jealousy  between  Continental  and  partisan  leaders  — 
Greene's  unfortunate  habit  of  letter-writing  —  Governor  Rutledge  sum- 
mons Sumter  to  meet  Greene  —  Sumter  hastens  to  obey,  notwithstanding 
his  wound  — Their  conference  —  Greene  writes  to  Sumter,  disparaging 
partisan  warfare  —  Effect  of  letter  considered  —  His  own  conduct  incon- 
sistent therewith  —  His  failure  to  recognize  what  had  been  accomplished 
by  the  volunteer  bands  —  Case  between  Sumter  and  Morgan  stated  and 
considered  —  Greene's  radical  misconception  of  the  partisan  corps  — 
No  government  to  furnish  a  militia  —  Marion  continues  his  successful 
raids  on  enemy's  communication  —  Greene  writes  to  him  approving  his 
partisan  warfare  —  Lee's  Legion  arrives  at  Cheraw  —  Its  composition  — 
Marion's  corps  as  now  organized  —  Capture  of  Captain  De  Peyster  by  Cap- 
tain Postell  —  Colonel  Peter  Horry  attacks  and  routes  Tories  under 
Gainey  —  Sergeant  McDonald's  gallant  conduct  ~  Marion,  threatened 
by  Hector  McNeal  from  North  Carolina,  appeals  to  Greene  for  re- 
enforcements —  Lee's  Legion  sent  to  his  assistance  —  Major  Anderson 
sent  to  attack  Tories  at  Amie's  Mills — Lee  joins  Marion  and  attacks 
Georgetown,  garrison  surprised.  Colonel  Campbell  taken  prisoner  — 
Marion  and  Lee  ultimately  repulsed  —  Major  Irvine  of  British  army 
killed. 

CHAPTER  IV 

Positions  of  the  British  and  American  forces  when  the  battle  of 
Cowpens  was  fought  —  Greene  learns  of  the  victory,  but  makes  no 
movement  —  Morgan  leaves  Pickens  to  bury  the  dead  and  provide  for 
the  wounded  —  Advances  across  Cornwallis's  front  —  Reaches  Gilbertown 

—  Hyrne  relieves  Pickens  of  care  of  prisoners  —  Sir  Henry  Clinton  sends 
a  corps  under  General  Philips  to  take  the  place  of  Leslie's  in  Virginia  — 
Leslie  effects  junction  with  Cornwallis,  who  begins  his  march  northward 

—  Greene  informs  Marion  of  victory  at  Cowpens  —  His  ride  across  the 
country  to  join  Morgan  —  Leaves  Huger  to  follow  with  rest  of  army  — 
Position  at  Cheraw  proves  not  as  satisfactory  as  Greene  had  supposed  — 
British   forces    remaining    in    South    Carolina  —  Question  as   to    Lord 


CONTENTS  XI 

Rawdon's  command  —  Question  as  to  credit  for  movements  in  South 
Carolina  after  Greene  left  the  State  —  Brilliant  strokes  of  the  Postells  — 
Marion  attacks  Major  McLeroth  at  Halfway  Swamp  —  Pursues  him  — 
McLeroth  halts  and  takes  position  —  Marion  proposes  a  combat  between 
picked  men  from  both  sides  —  McLeroth  accepts  —  Arrangements  made 

—  Parties  about  to  engage  when  McLeroth  calls  in  his  and  retreats  —  His 
object  probably  to  gain  time  —  Abandons  his  baggage  and  escapes  Marion 

—  Sumter,  partially  recovered  from  his  wound,  takes  the  field  —  Pickens 
operates  in  rear  of  Cornwallis  —  Sumter  is  joined  by  his  partisan 
leaders,  marches  for  Fort  Granby  —  Attacks  the  place  —  Hawdon 
marches  to  its  relief  —  Sumter  writes  to  Marion,  requesting  a  conference 

—  Destroys  British  magazines  in  Rawdon's  presence  and  retires  — 
Attacks  British  post  at  Thomson's  plantation  —  Attacks  and  captures 
wagon  train  and  convoy  —  Lord  Rawdon  appears  —  Sumter  retires  with 
prize,  which  he  loads  on  canoes  on  the  Santee,  but  loses  by  the  treachery 
of  pilot  —  Attacks  Fort  Watson,  but  is  repulsed  — Retires  to  High  Hills 
of  Santee  —  Writes  again  to  Marion,  urging  conference,  but  Marion  does 
not  come  —  Sumter  retires  to  the  Waxhaws  —  On  his  march  he  is  at- 
tacked by  British  troops  under  Major  Fraser  — But  is  not  impeded  — 
Rawdon  concerts  movements  to  crush  Marion  —  Watson  from  Nelson's 
Ferry  and  Doyle  from  Camden  sent  after  him  —  Marion  moves  from 
Snow  Island  by  rapid  march,  attacks  Watson  at  Wiboo  Swamp,  and 
defeats  him  —  Affair  of  Mud  Lick  on  the  Saluda  —  Roebuck  and  White 
defeat  the  British  and  Tories  —  Horry's  rear  guard  fight  at  Mount  Hope 

—  Marion  attacks  Watson  at  Black  River  —  Watson  takes  position  at 
Blakeley's  plantation  —  Is  there  besieged  —  Escapes  to  Georgetown  — 
Marion  pursues  him  —  Doyle  attacks  Marion's  guard  at  Snow  Island 
and  destroys  his  provisions  —  Returning  from  pursuit  of  Watson,  Marion 
attacks  and  defeats  Doyle  at  Witherspoon's  Ferry  —  Watson,  refreshed  at 
Georgetown,  again  ta.kes  the  field  against  Marion  —  Returning  from 
pursuit  of  Doyle,  Marion,  hearing  of  the  destruction  of  his  stores  and 
ammunition  at  Snow  Island,  determines  to  retire  to  North  Carolina,  but 
learns  of  the  approach  of  Lee. 


CHAPTER  V 

Pickens,  now  made  brigader-general,  rejoins  Greene  and  is  put  in 
charge  of  operations  in  the  rear  of  Cornwallis  —  Huger  and  Lee  form 
junction  with  Greene  and  Morgan  at  Guilford  Court-house  —  Greene 
retreats  into  Virginia,  while  Cornwallis  moves  to  Hillsboro  —  Brilliant 
stroke  of  McCall  under  Pickens  —  Graham's  part  in  it  —  Greene  visits 
Pickens's  camp,  concerts  combined  movements  of  Pickens  and  Lee  — 


XU  CONTENTS 

Pickens's  movements  —  The  Pyles  affair  —  Pickens  returns  to  South 
Carolina  —  Tlie  affair  at  Dutchman  Creek  —  Pickens  is  joined  by- 
Colonel  Clarke  of  Georgia  and  McCall  —  Attacks  and  defeats  Dunlap 
at  Beattie's  Mill  —  Curious  doubt  as  to  Dunlap's  life  or  death  —  William 
Harden,  a  new  leader,  now  appears  —  Leaving  Marion  on  Pee  Dee,  Harden 
crosses  the  country  and  takes  position  between  Charlestown  and 
Pocotaligo  —  Attempts  to  induce  Colonel  Hayne  to  take  the  field,  but 
Hayne  refuses  —  The  facts  of  Hayne's  case  —  Affairs  at  Barton's  post 
—  Affair  with  Fenwick  —  Harden  attacks  and  takes  Fort  Balfour  —  In  a 
week's  operations  in  rear  of  Charlestown,  fights  four  engagements  and 
breaks  up  British  communication. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Summary  of  engagements  and  results  effected  by  the  volunteer 
partisan  bands  during  Greene's  absence  from  the  State  —  But  growing 
necessity  for  more  regular  organization  —  No  civil  government  to  provide 
a  militia  —  Governor  Rutledge,  with  dictatorial  powers,  still  out  of  the 
State  —  His  letters  to  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Pickens —  Sumter's  ineffectual 
appeals  to  Marion  for  counsel  and  cooperation  —  Sumter  writes  to  Marion 
upon  subject  for  organization  of  State  troops  —  Richard  Hampton's 
letter  to  his  brother  John  on  same  subject,  giving  details  of  plan  — 
Scheme  discussed  —  Its  evils —  Marion  disapproves  —  Sumter  and  Pickens 
partly  adopt  it  —  But  not  successfully  —  Regiments  raised  —  Wade 
Hampton  takes  the  field  —  Tradition  in  regard  to  him  —  His  case  like 
tliat  of  Pickens,  Hayne,  and  others  in  regard  to  their  paroles  —  Its  im- 
portance —  The  case  of  Captain  Postell  —  Marion's  conduct  in  regard 
thereto  —  His  correspondence  with  Captain  Saunders  upon  subject  — 
His  correspondence  with  Watson  upon  same  —  Balfour's  letter  to  Watson 
—  Marion,  in  retaliation  for  Postell's  arrest,  takes  an  officer  sent  by 
Saunders  under  a  flag,  but  officer  escapes  —  Postell  held  a  prisoner  to  the 
end  of  the  war. 

CHAPTER  YII 

British  rejoicing  upon  the  news  of  victory  at  Guilford  Court-house  — 
Cruden's  ball  — Conduct  of  the  Carolina  women  —  Actual  results  of  the 
battle  disastrous  to  the  British  —  Greene  resumes  the  offensive  —Wade 
Hampton  arrives  at  Greene's  headquarters  with  letter  from  Sumter  — 
Question  as  to  the  credit  of  the  idea  of  Greene's  movement  upon  Raw- 
don  at  Camden  — Two  parties  upon  subject  at  Greene's  headquarters  — 
Greene  reluctantly  determines  upon  movement  —  Writes  to  Sumter,  an- 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

nouncing  his  purpose,  and  putting  him  in  charge  of  cooperative  move- 
ments in  South  Carolina  —  The  charge  that  Sumter  disclosed  his  purpose 
considered  and  answered  —  Greene,  disregarding  his  letter  to  Sumter, 
sends  Lee  to  Marion  with  special  instruction  —  Sumter's  letter  to  Greene, 
promising  cordial  cooperation,  and  saying  how  many  men  he  expected  to 
be  able  to  furnish  —  Controversy  upon  this  subject  —  No  militia  in  South 
Carolina  —  Only  partisan  followers  of  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Pickens  — 
Sumter  takes  the  field  and  sweeps  the  country  from  the  Catawba  to  the 
Saluda — Marion,  joined  by  Lee,  abandons  his  retreat  to  North  Carolina, 
turns  upon  Watson,  who,  hearing  of  Lee's  junction  with  him,  retreats  to 
Georgetown  —  Marion  proposes  to  follow  Watson,  but  Lee  dissuades  him 
—  Marion  and  Lee  determine  to  take  Fort  Watson  —  They  proceed  to  do 
so  —  Gallant  defence  by  Lieutenant  McKay  —  Marion  sends  to  Greene  for 
piece  of  artilleiy  —  Meanwhile  fort  taken  by  means  of  Maham's  device  of 
a  commanding  log  tower — Marion  moves  to  High  Hills  of  Santee  —  His 
movement  brings  on  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  —  Greene's  flattering 
letter  to  Marion  —  His  inconsistent  letters  to  Washington  and  to  Governor 
Reed  —  Sumter's  subsequent  denunciation  of  the  letters  in  which  Greene 
disparages  the  followers  of  Sumter  and  Marion. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Greene  breaks  up  his  camp  at  Ramsay's  Mill  and  marches  to  South 
Carolina  —  Arrives  before  Camden  —  On  road  receives  letter  from  Sumter, 
reporting  his  movements  and  condition  of  affairs  —  Replies  to  it,  giving 
Sumter  instructions  —  Writes  twice  again  to  Sumter,  which  letters  fail  to 
reach  him  —  Sumter  reports  his  movements  in  pursuance  of  his  instruc- 
tions—  Rawdon  apprised  of  Greene's  approach — Receives  reenforcements 
of  a  body  of  Loyalists  —  An  examination  of  the  numbers  of  the  two  armies, 
British  and  American  —  Greene  advances  and  takes  post  at  Hobkirk's 
Hill  —  Sends  piece  of  artillery  to  Marion  —  Movements  to  conceal  his 
doing  so  —  Colonel  Carrington's  mistake  —  Rawdon  assumes  the  offensive 

—  Marches  out  and  attacks  Greene  —  Question  as  to  the  surprise  of  Greene 

—  Greene's  dispositions  for  battle  —  Description  of  battle  —  Greene  de- 
feated—  Losses  on  both  sides  —  Greene's  disappointment  —  Loss  of  battle 
attributed  to  Colonel  Gunby  —  Court  of  inquiry  exculpates  him  of  all  but 
errors  of  judgment  —  Features  of  the  battle  considered  —  Greene  writes 
long  letter  of  complaint  to  Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania  —  Complains 
that  Sumter  and  Marion  accomplish  but  little  —  The  British,  on  the  other 
hand,  not  elated  by  the  victory  —  Balfour's  letter  to  Clinton  on  the  sub- 
ject. 


Xiv  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IX 

Greene  orders  Sumter  to  collect  his  forces  and  join  him  —  Receiving 
letter  from  Marion  of  capture  of  Fort  Watson,  replies,  directing  him  also 
to  move  up  and  join  him  —  Sends  similar  order  to  Lee  —  Watson  eludes 
Marion,  Lee,  and  Sumter,  and  reaches  llawdon  —  Greene  contemplates 
abandoning  the  State  — Orders  to  Marion  and  Lee  countermanded  — Sum- 
ter criticised  for  not  joining  Lee  —  Greene's  letter  to  Lee  upon  the  subject, 
and  Lee's  reply  condemning  Sumter  —  Correspondence  between  Sumter 
and  Greene,  showing  Greene's  approval  of  Sumter's  course  —  Sumter 
blamed  for  Watson's  success  in  joining  Rawdon  —  Charge  considered  — 
Anticipating  an  advance  upon  Rawdon's  part,  Greene  falls  back  to  Saw- 
ney's Creek  —  Rawdon  advances,  but  finding  Greene's  position  too  strong, 
retires  —  Controversy  as  to  Greene's  purpose  at  this  time  to  abandon  the 
State  —  Davie's  statement  in  regard  to  it —  Greene's  cipher  letter  to  Lee 
—  His  letter  to  Washington  —  No  inconsistency  between  Davie's  state- 
ment and  Greene's  cipher  letter  to  Lee — Different  motives  only  attrib- 
uted—  Mr.  Lee's  views  as  to  the  disastrous  consequences  had  Greene 
carried  out  his  purpose. 


CHAPTER  X 

Lord  Rawdon's  disapproval  of  the  post  at  Camden — Sumter  and  Marion 
had  also  perceived,  and  acted  upon  same  —  Lee  entitled  to  credit  of 
Greene's  return  to  South  Carolina,  but  not  to  the  initiation  of  the 
movements  against  Rawdon's  communication  —  Greene's  disparagement 
of  it — His  personal  reason  therefor — Effect  of  these  movements  ap- 
preciated in  England  —  Rawdon  determines  to  abandon  Camden  —  His 
measures  therefor  —  He  burns  Camden  and  falls  back  —  Unhappy  fate  of 
Loyalists  who  accompany  him  on  his  retreat  —  Brilliant  successes  of  the 
partisan  corps  and  Lee  Legion  —  Sumter  besieges  Fort  Motte  and  Fort 
Granby  —  Captures  Orangeburg  and  its  garrison  —  Sweeps  across  the 
country,  removing  horses  and  all  means  of  transportation  in  Rawdon's 
way  — Marion  and  Lee  join  in  siege  of  Fort  Motte  —  Story  of  the  siege  — 
Romantic  incident  of  Mrs.  Motte  furnishing  arrows  to  fire  her  house  —  The 
fort  taken  —  Greene  appears,  orders  Marion  to  Georgetown  and  Lee  to 
Granby  —  Negotiates  for  surrender  of  fort  —  Lee  receives  capitulation  of 
the  post— Sumter  indignant  at  the  terms  upon  which  he  did  so  — Both 
Sumter  and  Marion  tender  their  resignation  because  of  Lee's  conduct  — 
Greene  refuses  to  receive  either  —  Greene's  letter  to  Sumter  —  His  im- 
proper correspondence  with  Lee. 


CONTENTS  XV 


CHAPTER  XI 

Balfour  meets  Kawdon  at  Nelson's  Ferry,  reporting  the  whole  coun- 
try in  revolt,  and  the  dangerous  condition  of  affairs — Results  of  Sum- 
ter's raid  —  For  five  days  Rawdon  could  get  no  intelligence  —  Reports  that 
Greene  had  passed  the  Congaree  —  Sumter  urges  an  attack  upon  Raw^don 
by  Greene  with  all  his  forces  — Greene  refuses  —  Case  discussed  —  Greene 
turns  aside  to  besiege  Ninety  Six — Ninety  Six  ordered  to  be  evacuated 

—  Greene's  movements  prevent  it  — Greene  still  contemplating  giving 
up  further  prosecution  of  the  war  in  South  Carolina  —  Harden's  move- 
ments —  Clarke  and  McCall  proceed  to  Georgia  to  renew  the  war  there  — 
Both  stricken  with  small-pox  —  McCall  dies  —  Dreadful  condition  of  the 
Georgia  Whigs  —  Johnston  and  McKoy  take  position  on  the  Savannah  — 
Colonel  Browne  from  Augusta  sends  to  dislodge  them  —  His  detachment 
defeated  —  Browne  moves  against  Harden  —  Affair  at  Wiggins' s  Hill  — 
Harden  retreats  —  Losses  on  both  sides  —  Whigs  wounded  concealed  — 
Tanner  murdered  —  Wylley,  a  prisoner,  turned  over  by  Browne  to  Indians 
to  be  massacred  —  Tragic  story  of  Rannal  McKoy's  execution,  with  others, 
by  Browne  —  Pickens's  movements  since  his  return  to  South  Carolina  — • 
Joined  by  the  two  Hammonds — Affair  at  Horner's  Creek — Clarke  re- 
covers and  resumes  the  field  —  Marches  to  Augusta  —  Pickens  operates 
between  Augusta  and  Ninety  Six  —  Affair  at  Walker's  bridge,  Brier  Creek 
— Guard  at  Beech  Island  killed  by  detachment  sent  by  Browne  —  Detach- 
ment on  its  return  surprised  and  slaughtered  —  Greene  sends  Lee  to  pre- 
vent escape  of  garrison  from  Ninety  Six  —  Lee  attempts  to  surprise  the 
garrison,  but  fails  —  Reports  to  Greene  Colonel  Cruger's  purpose  to  hold 
Ninety  Six — Hastens  to  Augusta — Clarke  captures  boats  on  the  Savannah 
with  British  presents  to  Indians  —  Major  Rudulph  takes  Fort  Galphin 
with  stores  of  clothing  and  ammunition  —  Augusta  besieged  by  Pickens, 
Clarke,  and  Lee  —  Progress  of  the  siege  —  Attack  upon  Fort  Grierson  — 
Grierson's  whole  party  killed,  wounded,  or  taken  —  Major  Eaton  of  North 
Carolina  killed  —  Grierson  killed  while  a  prisoner  —  A  Maham  tower 
built  —  Severe  struggle  ensues,  with  great  loss  on  both  sides — Browne's 
stratagem  fails  —  Browne  surrenders  —  Losses  during  the  siege  —  Measures 
taken  for  Browne's  protection  —  Pickens  reports  circumstances  of 
Grierson's  death  to  Greene  —  Prisoners  taken  marched  to  Ninety  Six  — 
Browne  sent  to  Savannah  —  Mrs.  McKoy's  alleged  interview  with  Browne 

—  Pickens's  effort  to  discover  the  murderers  of  Grierson — Colonel  Lee 
marches  with  guns  captured  at  Augusta  to  join  in  siege  of  Ninety  Six  — 
Pickens  remains  at  Augusta  to  secure  stores  captured. 


Xvi  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XII 

Greene's  instructions  to  Sumter  upon  his  determination  to  proceed 
against  Ninety  Six  — At  Ninety  Six  the  first  bloodshed  of  the  Revolu- 
tion in  South  Carolina  —  The  place  and  its  fortification  described  — 
Colonel  Cruger  and  its  garrison  —  Cruger's  preparation  to  meet  Greene 

—  Greene  appears  before  the  place — With  Kosciuszko  reconnoitres  the 
place,  and  decides  upon  plan  of  siege  —  Approaches  begun  and  pressed 

—  Greene  summons  Cruger  to  surrender  —  He  refuses  —  Greene  learns  of 
the  appearance  off  Charlestown  bar  of  a  fleet  with  British  reenforcements  — 
The  time  of  its  arrival,  of  the  landing  of  the  troops,  and  of  Sumter's  and 
Marion's  report  of  same  considered  —  Colonel  Lee  reaches  Ninety  Six 
from  Augusta — Washington's  horse  and  Lee's  cavalry  sent  to  join  Sumter 

—  Greene  directs  Sumter  to  call  in  Marion  and  to  collect  all  his  forces  and 
to  oppose  advance  of  British  reenf orcement  —  British  regiments  con- 
stituting reenforcements  —  Rawdon  mounts  regiment  of  South  Carolina 
Royalists  as  cavalry  under  command  of  Major  John  Coffin  —  Marches  for 
the  relief  of  Ninety  Six  —  On  way  is  joined  by  Colonel  Doyle  from 
Monck's  Corner  —  Greene  continues  siege  of  Ninety  Six — Indian  arrov?^s 
and  Maham  tower  fail  of  effect —  Striking  episode  of  a  horseman  riding 
into  the  fort  of  Ninety  Six  with  news  of  Rawdon's  approach  —  Sumter, 
Marion,  and  Pickens  fail  to  form  junction  —  Rawdon  avoids  them  — 
Disaster  to  Colonel  Mydelton —  Rawdon  approaches  Ninety  Six — Greene 
attempts  to  storm  the  works,  but  fails  —  He  raises  the  siege. 


CHAPTEE  XIII 

The  country  recovered  by  Rawdon  —  But  could  he  hold  it?  —  The 
difficulties  of  his  situation  —  His  duties  to  the  Loyalists  who  had  stood  by 
the  king  —  Convenes  principal  Tories  and  confers  with  them  —  They  de- 
termine to  follow  him  to  Charlestown  —  Leaving  Cruger  to  escort  them, 
Rawdon  moves  to  the  Congaree  —  Writes  to  Balfour  for  strong  corps  to 
be  sent  to  Orangeburg  —  Colonel  Gould,  commanding  recently  armed  re- 
enforcements, sends  Colonel  Stuart  with  Third  Regiment — Greene  sends 
Lee  to  hover  about  Ninety  Six,  Washington  to  Granby  —  Sumter  pre- 
pares for  another  expedition  to  the  Low-Country  —  Greene  advances  to 
Granby  —  Awaits  there  reenforcements  from  North  Carolina  —  Learns  of 
stores  under  escort  moving  to  Orangeburg —  Orders  Lee  to  form  junction 
with  Washington,  and  Sumter  to  detach  Mydelton  also  to  Washington  — 
Washington  intercepts  letter  for  Stuart  informing  Rawdon  of  his  advance 
to  Orangeburg  —  Greene  determines  to  attack  Stuart— With  small  escort 


CONTENTS  XVll 

hastens  to  join  Washington  —  Rawdon  reaches  Granby  before  Greene  — 
Lee  strikes  a  brilliant  stroke,  capturing  wagons  and  escort  of  cavalry,  in- 
flicting serious  loss  on  liawdon  —  Stuart  recalled  to  Charlestown  —  Raw- 
don, hearing  nothing  of  him,  retires  to  Orangeburg  —  British  suffer  from 
the  intense  heat  —  Criticisms  of  Greene's  officers  considered  and  answered 

—  Marion  joins  Washington  —  They  concert  a  movement  against  a  convoy 
for  relief  of  Rawdon,  but  fail  to  take  it  —  Greene,  summoning  Sumter, 
Marion,  Lee,  and  Washington,  resolves  to  march  upon  Orangeburg — 
Pickens  left  to  watch  Cruger  —  Cruger's  march  with  the  Tory  refugees 

from  Ninety  Six  —  Suffering  of  the  refugees  —  Cruger  abandons  refugees       *7''^- 
and  joins  Rawdon  —  Pickens  fails  to  impede   him  —  Green,  joined  by 
Sumter  and  others,  offers  battle,  which  Rawdon  declines — Greene  recon- 
noitres Rawdon's  position  at  Orangeburg  —  Finds  it  too  strong  to  attack 

—  Greene  turns  over  all  his  mounted  men  to  Sumter,  and  gives  him  leave 
to  make  expedition  to  Low-Country  —  Activity  elsewhere  —  Colonel  Peter 
Horry,  for  Marion,  negotiates  treaty  with  Major  Gainey  of  the  Tories  — 
Marion  burns  Georgetown  —  Harden  establishes  camp  at  Horseshoe  — 
Colonel  Hayne  here  joins  him  —  At  once  enters  the  field  —  Makes  brilliant 
dash  to  the  gates  of  Charlestown  —  Captures  General  Williamson  —  Major 
Fraser  pursues  and  overtakes  Hayne,  and  captures  him  and  releases 
Williamson. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Sumter  gathers  his  forces  for  the  expedition  into  the  Low-Country  — 
Troops  constituting  his  command  —  A  splendid  body  of  men  —  Unfortunate 
jealousies  of  leaders  —  Stuart  resumes  his  advance  to  join  Lord  Rawdon 

—  Colonel  Coates,  with  Nineteenth  Regiment,  sent  to  Monck's  Comer  — 
Different  roads  to  Charlestown  —  British  posts  at  Dorchester  and  Quarter 
House  —  Greene  urges  Sumter  to  hasten  expedition  —  Disposition  of  Sum- 
ter's forces  —  Lee  takes  Dorchester  without  opposition  —  Wade  Hampton 
captures  prisoners  at  Goose  Creek  church,  and  attacks  the  Quarter  House 
and  captures  garrison  —  Lee  also  reaches  the  Quarter  House  and  pushes 
below  it  —  One  of  the  causes  which  operated  against  complete  success  of 
expedition  —  Coates  crosses  from  Monck's  Corner  to  Biggin  Church  — 
Sumter's  force  collected,  he  sends  Maham  to  break  up  Quinby's  bridge 
in  Coates' s  rear  —  Maham  is  reenforced  by  Horry  and  Lacey  —  Slight  affair 
at  the  bridge  —  Horry  withdraws  party  —  Coates  burns  his  stores,  crosses 
the  bridge,  and  attempts  to  destroy  it  —  Pursuit  of  Coates  begun  —  Piece 
of  artillery  left  —  Lee  and  Hampton  turn  aside  to  pursue  Captain  Camp- 
bell, who  is  captured  with  one  hundred  men — The  battle  of  Quinby's 
takes  place  —  Account  of  same  —  Discord  among  the  leaders  —  Num- 
ber engaged  and  losses — Specie  taken  divided  among  the  soldiers — Much 


xviii  CONTENTS 

accomplished,  though  not  all  that  should  have  been  — Sumter  recrosses 
Santee  and  takes  position  at  Friday's  Ferry  —  Greene's  campaign  ended 
—  He  retires  to  Camp  of  Repose  on  High  Hills  of  Santee,  leaving  Sumter 
and  Marion  to  watch  below. 


CHAPTER  XV 

No  exchange  of  prisoners  in  the  Southern  Department  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  war  —  Prisoners,  civil  and  military,  at  first  treated 
with  no  great  severity  —  Continental  soldiers  confined  in  barracks  in 
Charlestown  —  Officers  at  Haddrell's  Point  — Their  disorderly  conduct  — 
Moultrie  threatens  them  with  court-martial  —  Judge  Pendleton,  a  civil 
prisoner,  escapes ;  his  case  —  Correspondence  between  Balfour  and  Moul- 
trie thereon  —  Continental  prisoners  celebrate  Fourth  of  July  —  Corre- 
spondence between  Balfour  and  Moultrie  thereon  —  Moultrie  protests 
against  the  arrest  and  exile  of  citizens  sent  to  St.  Augustine  —  Balfour's 
reply  —  Prisoners  taken  at  Camden  marched  to  Charlestown  and  crowded 
into  prison  ships  —  Dr.  Fayssoux's  account  of  their  treatment  —  Balfour's 
attempt  to  seduce  Moultrie  through  his  son  — Sir  Charles  Montagu  re- 
turns to  South  Carolina  —  Offers  soldiers  on  prison  ships  release  if  they 
go  with  him  to  West  Indies  —  Offers  command  of  his  regiment  to  Moul- 
trie —  Correspondence  upon  the  subject  —  Moultrie's  admirable  letter  — 
Colonel  Grimk6  and  Major  Habersham  arrested  and  put  in  close  confine- 
ment— Balfour  threatens  to  send  all  prisoners  to  West  Indies  —  Moul- 
trie protests  —  General  exchange  agreed  upon  —  Grimk^'s  escape  —  Greene 
gives  him  a  command  with  which  he  raids  the  prison  camp  at  Haddrell's 
Point  —  Balfour  prohibits  paroled  prisoners  from  exercising  any  pro- 
fession or  calling  —  Threatens  to  retaliate  for  alleged  ill  treatment  of 
British  prisoners  in  American  hands — Reply  of  More,  Barnwell,  and 
other  prisoners  on  prison  ships  thereto  —  Major  Hyrne's,  commissary  of 
prisoners,  admirable  management  by  which  he  effects  a  general  exchange 
according  to  the  cartel. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Military  government  established  by  British  —  Police  board  —  James 
Sampson,  Intendant  —  Table  of  depreciation  of  currency  adopted  —  Its 
unexpected  effects  —  More  injurious  to  loyal  interest  than  to  the  Whigs 
—  General  Patterson  relieved,  and  Nisbet  Balfour  appointed  comman- 
dant of  the  town  —  Unfriendly  relations  between  Balfour  and  Rawdon  — 
Balfour's  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  rule  —  The  Exchange  used  as  a  prison 


CO^"  TENTS  XIX 

—  The  Provost  —  Cruel  imprisonments  therein  —  Patriotic  conduct  of  the 
Carolina  women — Treatment  of  exiles  to  St.  Augustine  —  Upon  the  whole 
at  first  lenient  —  William  Brown's  especial  good  conduct  to  them  —  Other 
exiles  added  to  former  number  —  Condition  changed  for  the  worse  — 
Information  of  execution  of  cartel  of  exchange  of  prisoners  —  P^xiles 
notified  to  prepare  to  march  to  St.  John's  Kiver  —  Memorialize  against 
being  compelled  to  do  so  —  Vessels  arrive  off  bar  to  take  exiles  —  Women 
and  children  of  exiles  ordered  to  leave  Charlestown  —  Great  distress  occa- 
sioned thereby  —  Arrangements  finally  made  to  take  exiles  to  Philadelphia 

—  Exiles  charter  one  vessel  for  the  purpose  —  More  than  one  thousand 
persons  forced  to  leave  Charlestown  —  Families  of  exiles  embark  from 
Charlestown  for  Philadelphia  —  Mrs.  De  Saussure's  petition  to  be  allowed 
to  sell  furniture  to  provide  means  of  transportation  —  Meeting  of  the  exiles 
and  their  families  in  Philadelphia  —  Resolutions  of  Congress  in  regard  to 
them  —  Appeals  made  to  other  States  for  their  assistance  —  Contributions 
made  therefor  —  Exchange  of  military  prisoners. 


CHAPTER  XYII 

Colonel  Hayne's  case  —  Balfour  delays  action  upon  it  to  consult  Lord 
Rawdon  —  Question  as  to  which  had  right  of  command  —  Balfour  writes 
to  Rawdon  for  his  concurrence  in  regard  to  case  —  Delay  in  case — Rawdon 
replies  to  Balfour  and  comes  himself  to  Charlestown — His  leaving  the 
field  at  this  time  criticised  —  His  statement  as  to  what  occurred  on  his 
arrival — Application  made  to  him  at  his  own  suggestion,  and  addressed 
to  him  as  commander-in-chief  —  Plis  account  of  what  followed  examined 

—  Colonel  Hayne  informed  that  he  was  to  be  tried  —  Order  revoked,  and 
another  issued  for  a  court  of  inquiry  —  Hayne  misled  by  this  —  Order 
based  on  that  constituting  the  court  which  tried  and  condemned  Andr6 

—  Hayne  appears  before  the  court  —  His  account  of  what  took  place ; 
another  American  oitlcer's  account  of  same  —  Court  and  prisoner  alike 
supposed  its  action  a  preliminary  one  —  Hayne  informed  of  his  condemna- 
tion by  Rawdon  and  Balfour  —  Mr.  Colcock's  legal  opinion  thereon  — 
Hayne's  protest  —  Is  informed  he  is  to  be  executed  under  Lord  Corn- 
wallis's  standing  order  —  Rawdon  again  designated  as  commander-in-chief 

—  Hayne  reprieved  for  forty-eight  hours  —  Ladies  petition  and  implore 
for  his  pardon  —  Lieutenant-Governor  Bull  also  appeals  in  Hayne's  behalf 

—  Sir  Egerton  Leigh  opposes  pardon  —  Account  of  execution  —  Indigna- 
tion with  which  the  news  of  it  is  received  in  the  American  army  —  Greene's 
action  thereon  —  Oflficers  unite  in  urging  retaliations — Greene's  proclama- 
tion—No retaliation  —  Debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  upon  subject  — 
Case  considered  —  American  precedents  —  Hayne's  true  martyrdom. 


XX  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Greene  at  Camp  of  Repose  appeals  for  assistance  —  His  disappointments 

—  Wayne  with  Pennsylvania  line,  on  his  way  to  join  Greene,  is  stopped 
in  Virginia  —  Colonel  Jackson's  corps  of  Georgians  destroyed  by  small- 
pox —  Militia  from  North  Carolina  promised,  fail  to  come  —  Shelby  and 
Sevier,  on  their  way,  turn  back  —  Other  causes  of  complaint  against  Sumter 
conjured  —  The  complaint  that  Sumter  had  disbanded  his  followers 
considered  —  Vicious  system  of  raising  State  troops  upon  pay  in  kind 
of  negroes  and  spoils  —  Wade  Hampton's  letter  upon  subject  —  Hender- 
son's letter  upon  same  —  Attempt  to  hold  Sumter  responsible  for  the 
burning  of  Georgetown  —  Difference  of  opinions  between  Greene,  Sumter, 
Marion,  and  Lee  as  to  operations  —  Greene  avaricious  of  glory  —  Jealous 
of  his  followers  —  Washington  detached  to  cooperate  with  Marion  and 
Maham  —  Henderson  in  command  of  Sumter's  brigade  —  Greene  sends 
Malmedy  to  North  Carolina  for  assistance  —  Success  of  his  mission  — 
Assistance  promised  —  Tory  Captain  Connaway's  success  against  Harden 

—  Successful  Tory  raids  of  Williams  and  Cuningham  —  Washington's 
campaign  at  the  North  compels  Greene  to  abandon  Camp  of  liepose  — 
Greene  calls  in  his  detachments  —  Crosses  the  Congaree  —  Takes  position 
at  Eutaw  —  Marion's  brilliant  raid  in  relief  of  Harden. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

Greene's  movements  preceding  the  battle  of  Eutaw  —  Does  not  wait 
for  Marion  —  Number  of  men  on  either  side  and  composition  of  the 
opposing  forces  —  Order  of  Greene's  advance  —  Stuart's  movements  — 
British  routing  party  captured  —  Advance  party  under  Major  Coffin 
repulsed  and  dispersed  —  Greene's  line  of  battle  formed  —  The  British 
order  of  battle  —  The  battle-field  of  Eutaw  described  —  The  battle  takes 
place  —  Description  of  it — Both  parties  claim  the  victory  —  But  the 
Americans  leave  the  field  which  the  British  hold  —  Ultimate  results 
nevertheless  with  the  Americans  —  Losses  upon  both  sides  —  The 
heroes  of  the  battle,  Majoribanks  and  Coffin  of  the  British,  and  Wade 
Hampton  of  the  Americans. 

CHAPTER  XX 

Stuart  retreats  to  Fair  Lawn,  destroys  his  stores  there,  and  thence 
to  Wantoot  —  Greene  receives  reports  of  Cornwallis  returning  to  South 
Carolina  —  Retires  to  High  Hills  of  Santee  —  Stuart,  calling  in  all  his 
detachments,  advances  again  to  the  Eutaw  —  Governor  Burke  of  North 


CONTENTS  XXI 

Carolina  captured  by  Hector  McNeill  —  Lord  Rawdon  captured  at  sea  — 
Exchanged  for  Burke  —  Stuart  retires  from  the  field  because  of  wound 

—  Colonel  Doyle  succeeds  to  command  of  British  forces  —  Tory  partisan 
leaders  take  the  field  —  Sketch  of  Bloody  Bill  Cuningham  —  His 
grievances  —  Murder  of  Ritchie  —  Raids  into  Ninety  Six  —  Slaughter  of 
the  Butlers  at  Cloud's  Creek  —  Crosses  the  Saluda  and  raids  what  is 
now  Laurens  and  Newberry  counties  —  Slaughter  of  Hayes  and  his  party 

—  Cuningham  intercepts  wagon  convoy  for  Pickens  —  Is  pursued  by 
Hammond  —  Tory  raid  of  Hezekiah  Williams  —  Affair  at  Vince's  Fort  — 
Cherokees'  rise  on  frontier  —  Take  Gowen's  Fort  and  slaughter  the 
garrison  and  refugees  in  it  —  Led  by  Bloody  Bates  —  His  ultimate  fate. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

Efforts  to  induce  the  French  fleet  after  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  to 
cooperate  against  British  at  Charlestown  —  They  fail  —  Washington  now 
enabled  to  send  reenforcements  to  Greene  —  Shelby  and  Sevier  join  him 

—  Intelligence  of  the  surrender  of  Yorktown  received  —  Greene's  move- 
ments based  upon  the  reenforcement  of  Shelby  and  Sevier — Report  of 
intention  of  British  to  evacuate  Charlestown  —  Shelby,  Sevier,  Horry,  and 
Maham  ordered  to  join  Marion  —  Sumter  to  take  post  at  Orangeburg  — 
Pickens  despatched  to  put  down  Indians  —  Major  Moore  surprised  at 
Rowe's  plantation  —  Sumter  falls  back  —  Marion's  advance  checked  — 
Camp  at  High  Hills  of  Santee  broken  up  —  Greene  advances  to  Round  O 

—  Shelby  and  Sevier  desert  Greene  —  Sickness  and  mortality  of  British 
troops  —  Affair  at  Fair  Lawn — Post  abandoned  by  British  —  Burnt  by 
Marion  —  Stuart  complains  —  Cuningham  surprises  Richard  Hampton  — 
Stuart  falls  back  towards  Charlestown  —  Greene  himself  proceeds  to  Dor- 
chester with  W^ade  Hampton  —  Colonel  Williams  moves  with  army  to 
Four  Holes  —  Hampton  attacks  and  defeats  a  party  of  Loyalists  sent  to 
observe  him  —  Stuart  retreats  to  Quarter  House  —  Is  relieved  of  command 
by  Leslie  —  British  confined  to  Charlestown  Neck  — Colonel  Craig  sent  to 
John's  Island  —  Marion  takes  post  at  Wadboo  —  Sumter  at  Orangeburg 

—  Wade  Hampton  keeps  open  communication  between  them  —  Greene's 
want  of  ammunition  —  Greene's  army  now  in  a  rich  country — Colonel  Lee's 
description  of  it  —  Greene  takes  position  to  cover  Jacksonborough,  that 
General  Assembly  might  be  called  there  — Colonel  John  Laurens  returns 
and  joins  Greene  — Put  in  command  of  independent  corps  — Opens  secret 
communication  with  Charlestown  —  Greene's  alarm  at  reports  of  renewed 
British  efforts  to  hold  Charlestown  and  reconquer  province  —  Sends  to 
hurry  St.  Clair  and  Wayne  on  their  march  to  him  —  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  inert  —  Greene  writes  to  Governor  Rutledge,  proposing  to  raise 


xxii  CONTENTS 

negro  troops  —  Indignation  created  thereat  —  Expedition  under  Laurens, 
Lee,  and  Hamilton  against  John's  Island  —  Its  failure  —  Question  as  to 
its  date  —  Affair  between  Dorchester  and  Quarter  House  in  which  Captain 
Armstrong  of  Lee's  Legion  is  taken  —  Close  of  military  operations  for  the 
year  1781. 

CHAPTER  XXII 

Recapitulation  of  Governor  Rutledge's  course  since  the  fall  of  Charles- 
town  —  He  returns  to  the  State  —  Establishes  himself  at  Camden,  and  sets 
to  work  reorganizing  military  and  civil  affairs  —  Table  of  brigade  and  regi- 
mental organization  —  Reorganization  under  militia  act  of  1779  —  Modifi- 
cation of  same  under  his  dictatorial  powers  —  His  proclamation  thereon  — 
Letter  to  Marion  forbidding  substitutes  —  Turns  his  attention  to  financial 
affairs  —  Orders  impressment  of  indigo —  Colonel  Lee's  interference  there- 
with—  His  proclamation  in  regard  to  treatment  of  Tories  —  Is  severely 
criticised  by  the  stanchest  Whigs —  "  Cassius's"  letter  thereon  —  Subject 
considered  —  Sumter's  last  act  of  command,  enforcing  Rutledge's  procla- 
mation and  receiving  the  submission  of  Tories  —  Appointment  of  ordina- 
ries — The  State  loses  the  services  of  both  Sumter  and  Harden  —  Governor 
Rutledge  appoints  Major  John  Barnwell  brigadier-general  over  Harden, 
who  at  once  resigns —  Sumter  sacrificed  to  cabal  of  Greene  and  Lee  —  his 
command  discriminated  against  and  reduced  —  Inconsistent  and  uncandid 
letters  of  Greene  —  Sumter  resigns. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

Review  of  the  year  1781  —  Deplorable  condition  of  affairs  at  the  North 
as  well  as  South  —  Mutiny  of  the  Pennsylvania  line  —  Cornwallis's  ad- 
vance into  North  Carolina  takes  Greene  from  the  State,  w^hich  is  again 
abandoned  by  the  Continental  forces — South  Carolina  left  for  three 
months  to  struggle  by  herself  —  Review  of  the  work  of  Sumter,  Marion, 
and  Pickens  —  Table  of  actions  fought  by  them  during  Greene's  absence 
—  Review  of  Greene's  movements  to  Camden  and  of  Rawdon's  evacuation 
of  that  post,  primarily  caused  by  action  of  the  partisan  band,  and  second- 
arily by  the  presence  of  Greene's  army  —  Greene's  subsequent  campaign 
reviewed  and  discussed  —  Large  number  of  prisoners  taken  by  the  partisan 
bands  forces  a  general  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  recovery  of  territory 
releases  others  from  their  paroles  —  Deplorable  condition  of  Ninety  Six 
District — Governor  Rutledge's  efforts  to  restore  order — Summary  of 
events  and  table  of  battles  fought  in  the  State  during  the  year  — The 
surrender  of  Cornwallis  practically  ends  the  war,  but  fighting  not  yet 
over  in  South  Carolina. 


CONTENTS  XXlll 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

Governor  Rutledge  issues  writs  of  election  for  General  Assembly  and 
sends  them  to  the  brigadier-generals  to  execute  —  Charge  of  "  Cassius  "  that 
he  dictated  who  were  to  be  returned  —  Senators  and  representatives  re- 
turned almost  exclusively  from  the  exiles  to  St.  Augustine  and  oflQcers  of 
the  State  troops  and  militia  —  Some  of  the  distinguished  men  among  them 
mentioned  —  Assembly  called  to  meet  at  Jacksonborough  —  Reasons  there- 
for—  Assembly  convenes — A  quorum  present — A  most  notable  assem- 
blage —  Remarkable  because  the  first  composed  of  representatives  from  all 
parts  of  the  State  —  Officers  elected  —  Governor's  address  —  Replies  thereto 
of  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  —  Greene  extolled  —  But  little 
notice  taken  of  Sumter,  Marion,  or  Pickens. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

The  suggestions  of  Governor  Rutledge  in  his  address  carried  out — 
Another  governor  to  be  elected  under  constitution  of  1778  —  Tory  rumor 
that  the  aristocratic  party  would  nominate  Ralph  Izard,  and  the  back 
country  people  Sumter  —  Christopher  Gadsden  elected,  but  declines  —  His 
speech  on  doing  so  —  John  Mathews  elected  governor  and  Richard  Hutson 
lieutenant-governor — Members  of  Privy  Council  elected  —  Several  acts 
passed  —  Following  Governor  Rutledge's  recommendation,  committee  ap- 
pointed to  purchase  an  estate  for  General  Greene  —  Action  of  Assembly 
soon  followed  by  complaints  —  Intrigues  charged  —  Assembly  proceeds  to 
confiscation  and  amercement  of  Tories  —  Recital  of  acts  upon  the  sub- 
ject— Classes  into  which  Tories  were  divided  for  purposes  of  the  act 
—  Commissioners  appointed  to  carry  out  act  —  The  Amercement  Act  — 
Christopher  Gadsden  opposes  these  acts  — Opposition  thereto  — "  Cassius's  " 
objections  to  same  —  Marion's  letter  to  Peter  Horry  on  subject  —  Acts 
really  measures  of  revenue,  not  of  revenge —  Great  injustice  and  partiality 
in  same  —  Act  a^jplied  almost  exclusively  to  Low-Country  Tories — But  few 
of  Up-Country  mentioned  in  them  —  Partiality  of  act  further  shown  — 
Effect  of  "  Cassius's  "  protest  —  Acts  of  relief  subsequently  passed  in  many 
cases. 

CHAPTER   XXVI 

Great  changes  in  the  situations  of  the  armies  during  the  year  1781  — 
Leslie,  now  in  command  of  British  forces,  restricted  for  supplies  —  Sends 
out  raiding  parties  from  several  points  —  Major  Coffin's  raid  —  Colonel 


XXIV  CONTENTS 

Richardson's  party  routed  —  Captain  Campbell's  death  —  General  St.  Clair 
at  length  arrives — General  Wayne  sent  to  Georgia  —  General  Barnwell 
to  cooperate  with  Wayne  —  Dissension  in  Marion's  brigade  —  Question  as 
to  rank  between  Peter  Horry  and  Maham  —  Marion  detained  at  Jackson- 
borough —  Correspondence  between  Green,  Horry,  and  Marion  —  Greene 
hesitates  to  decide  —  At  length  does  so  in  favor  of  Horry  —  But  offends 
both  parties  —  A  new  character  appears  on  British  side —  Count  Rum  ford 
—  Then  Colonel  Thompson  —  His  brilliant  raids  —  Affairs  at  Wambaw  and 
Tidyman's  plantation  —  Disperses  Marion's  brigade  —  Attempts  to  sur- 
prise and  take  Greene  himself,  but  fails  —  Horry  and  Maham's  regiments 
consolidated  under  Maham — Horry  resigns  —  But  is  appointed  to  the 
command  of  Georgetown  —  Maham  captured  —  Devaux  ravages  Stephen 
Bull's  plantation  and  burns  Sheldon  Church  —  Raids  along  the  rivers  and 
creeks  of  Low-Country  —  Wayne  and  Barnwell's  expedition  on  the  Savan- 
nah —  General  Barnwell  resigns. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

Upon  adjournment  of  General  Assembly  Greene  moves  to  Bacon's 
bridge  — Contraband  trade  opened  with  Charlestown,  connived  at  by  both 
Governor  Rutledge  and  General  Greene  —  Greene  plans  capture  of  the 
town,  but  abandons  the  effort  —  Rudulph's  brilliant  capture  of  a  British 
galley  —  Greene  appeals  to  Congress  for  supplies  —  Act  of  Assembly  pro- 
hibiting impressments,  but  undertaking  to  support  the  army  —Greene's 
dissatisfaction  with  arrangement  —  Complains  to  Governor  Mathews  of 
Mr.  Hort  the  commissary —  The  governor  supports  Hort  — General  dis- 
content in  Continental  line  — Mutiny  of  the  Pennsylvania  troops —Execu- 
tion of  Sergeant  Cornell  —  Rudulph's  affair  at  Dorchester  —  Pickens's 
expedition  against  the  Cherokees  —  Truces  between  Whigs  and  Tories  — 
Renewed  hostilities  — Affair  of  Watson  and  Butler  —  Sergeant  Vardell 
killed  —  Another  raid  by  Bloody  Bill  Cuningham  —  His  party  finally 
dispersed. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

Correspondence  between  General  Leslie  and  General  Greene  about 
Carolina  confiscation  acts  and  British  sequestrations  —  Resolution  carried 
in  British  Commons  to  put  an  end  to  war— Sir  Guy  Carleton  com- 
mander-in-chief of  British  forces  in  America  —  Henry  Laurens  released 
from  the  Tower  — And  exchanged  for  Lord  Corn wallis  —  Leslie  proposes 
a  truce  and  that  he  be  allowed  to  procure  supplies  from  the  country  -^ 


CONTENTS  XXV 

Proposition  declined  —  Leslie  to  take  supplies  by  force  —  Marion  re- 
organizes his  brigade  to  resist  —  Light  brigade  made  up  under  command 
of  General  Gist  —  Henderson,  made  brigadier-general,  and  Pickens  draw  in 
their  forces  to  headquarters  —  Tories  under  Gainey  again  rise  in  the  Pee 
Dee  —  Marion  sent  to  put  them  down  —  Succeeds  and  makes  another  treaty 

—  Depredations  on  the  Cooper  and  Santee  —  Leslie  fits  out  a  fleet  of  small 
boats  to  gather  supplies  —  Georgetown  supposed  its  destination  —  Marion 
hastens  there  —  Fleet  ravages  the  Santee  —  Marion  takes  post  at  Wadboo 

—  British  foraging  fleet  proceeds  to  Combahee  —  Greene  despatches  Gist 
to  protect  country  —  Colonel  Laurens  leaves  his  post  and  joins  Gist  — 
Is  drawn  into  an  ambuscade  and  killed  —  Grief  at  his  death  notwith- 
standing just  criticism  upon  his  conduct  —  Sketches  of  the  two  Lau- 
renses,  father  and  son  —  Major  Fraser  attacks  Marion  at  Wadboo,  is 
repulsed  —  Marion's  warfare  ends  —  Caperar's  gallant  action  —  Gist  pro- 
ceeds to  Beaufort —  The  Balfour  galley  captured  —  Greene's  movements 

—  Quarter  House  taken  —  British  confined  to  lines  around  Charlestown  — 
Indian  incursions  in  Georgia  —  Wayne  nearly  captured  —  Pickens  makes 
another  expedition  against  Cherokees  —  Makes  treaty  with  them. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

Arrival  of  British  fleet  to  cover  evacuation  of  the  town  —  Governor 
Mathews  agrees  to  allow  British  merchants  to  remain  for  a  limited  time 
to  dispose  of  their  stock  —  Arrangements  made  between  Governor 
Mathews  and  General  Leslie  for  the  return  of  negroes  belonging 
to  Americans  —  Commissioner  appointed  to  carry  out  arrangement  — 
Agreement  evaded  by  British  —  Dissolved  by  Governor  Mathews  — 
Its  impracticability  —  Kosciuszko's  attempts  to  seize  cattle  and  horses  of 
the  enemy  —  Captures  a  number  of  horses  —  These  claimed  by  their 
owners  as  captured  from  them  by  the  enemy  —  Greene  refuses  to  return 
them  to  owners  under  the  doctrine  of  postliminium  —  That  doctrine  dis- 
cussed—  Council  of  war  sustains  Greene's  position  notwithstanding 
Colonel  C.  C.  Pinckney's  opinion  to  the  contrary  —  Greene's  conduct 
creates  great  resentment  —  Bitter  hostility  to  the  Continental  army  — 
Kosciuszko's  attempt  to  capture  wood  party  on  James's  Island  defeated 
—  Capt.  Wilmot  killed  —  Marion  refuses  to  disturb  British  watering 
party  at  Lemprifere's  Point  —  Would  shed  no  more  blood  —  General 
Moultrie  is  exchanged  for  Burgoyne  —  His  journey  home  —  Scene  at  his 
plantation  —  The  faithfulness  of  his  negro  slaves  —  Arrangements  be- 
tween Greene  and  Leslie  for  the  evacuation  of  the  town  —  The  evacuation 
described. 


MAPS  AND  PLANS 

1.   The  Battle-fields  of  South  Carolina,  1775-1782       Frontispiece 


BETWEEN   PAGES 


2.  Plan  of  Battle  of  Hobkirks  Hill  ....  181-182 

3.  Plan  of  Siege  of  Ninety  Six 277-278 

4.  Plan  of  Battle  of  The  Eutaws 440-441 

5.  Map  showing  Seat  of  War  after  Eutaw       .        .         .  480-481 


HISTOEY  OE  SOUTH  CAEOLINA  IN  THE 
EEVOLUTION,  1780-1783 


^XKc 


CHAPTER  I 

1780 

Since  his  defeat  at  Camden,  Gates,  crushed  in  spirit  and 
subdued  in  tone,  had  been  in  Hillsboro,  North  Carolina, 
making  feeble  efforts  to  collect  and  organize  the  shattered 
remnants  of  his  vanquished  army.  While  Davie  with  his 
little  band,  and  Sumter,  Marion,  Lacey,  Hill,  the  Hamp- 
tons, Bratton,  Winn,  Williams,  and  McCall  of  South 
Carolina;  Shelby,  Sevier,  Cleveland,  Davidson,  Graham, 
and  the  McDowells  of  North  Carolina,  and  Campbell  all 
the  way  from  Virginia,  and  Clark  from  Georgia,  were 
organizing  volunteer  partisan  corps  and  assailing  upon 
every  opportunity  the  British  outposts,  fighting  pitched 
battles,  often  with  victory,  and  capturing  large  numbers 
of  the  enemy,  the  remains  of  the  Continental  army  were 
lying  idle  in  North  Carolina  —  waiting,  it  was  said,  for 
reenforcements  and  supplies. 

Congress  had  not  indicated  any  dissatisfaction  with  the 
conduct  of  Gates  when  the  news  of  his  defeat  and  the 
destruction  of  his  army  had  been  first  received.  It  was 
not,  indeed,  until  near  two  months  after  —  the  18th  of 
October,  1780  — that  a  resolution  was  passed  requiring  the 
Commander-in-chief  to  order  a  court  of  inquiry  upon  his 
conduct,  and  to  appoint  some  other  officer  to  the  command 


2  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  the  Southern  army  in  the  meantime.  General  Wash- 
ington upon  this  at  once  appointed  Major  General  Nathan- 
ael  Greene,  of  llhode  Island,  to  the  field  hitherto  so 
unfortunate  to  Continental  officers. 

General  Greene,  who  was  now  to  assume  command  of 
the  Southern  Department,  and  to  hold  it  until  the  end  of 
the  struggle,  was  a  native  of  Rhode  Island,  born  the  27th 
of  May,  1742,  the  son  of  a  Quaker  who  followed  the  johit 
occupations  of  blacksmith  and  farmer.  From  his  early 
youth  he  was  employed  in  assisting  his  father,  but  suc- 
ceeded, notwithstanding,  in  acquiring  much  general  in- 
formation, and  made  a  special  study  of  mathematics, 
history,  and  law.  At  Coventry,  where  he  removed  to  take 
charge  of  a  forge  of  his  own,  he  was  the  first  to  establish 
a  public  school ;  and  in  1770  he  was  chosen  a  member  of 
the  General  Assembly  of  Rhode  Island.  Sympathizing 
strongly  with  the  Revolutionists  he,  in  1774,  joined  the 
Kentish  Guards,  and  on  this  account  was  expelled  from 
the  Society  of  Friends.  Regretting  but  disregarding  this 
action  of  the  religious  body  to  which  he  had  belonged,  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  the  science  of  war  through 
such  books  as  he  could  obtain,  chief  of  which  were  Caesar's 
campaigns  and  Turenne's  Memoirs.  So  prominent  had  he 
become  in  military  matters  of  the  colony  that,  when  the 
first  blood  of  the  Revolution  was  shed  at  Lexington,  he 
was  at  once  made  Brigadier  General  to  command  "the 
army  of  observation  *'  of  fifteen  hundred  men  raised  by 
Rhode  Island,  the  greater  part  of  which,  by  the  8th  of 
May,  1775,  was  organized  and  on  its  march  to  Boston. 
So  efficient  an  officer  did  he  prove  to  be  that,  by  the  time 
Washington  reached  Boston  and  assumed  command  of  the 
American  forces  there,  he  regarded  Greene's  brigade, 
though  raw  and  irregular  and  undisciplined,  "  under  much 
better  government   than   any  around    Boston";   and  not 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  6 

long  after  Colonel  Reed,  Washington's  military  secretary, 
wrote  that  Greene's  "command  consisted  of  three  regi- 
ments, then  the  best  disciplined  and  appointed  in  the  whole 
American  army."  ^  He  did  not  take  part  at  Bunker  Hill 
on  the  17th,  for  he  was  stationed  on  the  opposite  end  of 
the  line.  On  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  Greene  marched 
with  Washington  to  New  York,  where,  on  August  9,  he 
was  promoted  to  the  rank  of  Major  General,  and  the  troops 
on  Long  Island  were  formed  into  a  division  under  his 
command.  Having  reached  this  high  position  without 
ever  having  been  engaged  in  battle,  General  Greene  was  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  taken  ill  just  at  the  time  when  the 
battle  of  Long  Island  took  place. 

Greene  first  came  under  fire  in  the  action  at  Harlem 
Plains  on  the  16th  of  September.  It  was  by  his  advice  that 
the  attempt  was  made  to  hold  Fort  Washington,  and  upon 
its  surrender  with  the  garrison,  Washington  and  himself 
were  equally  blamed,  he  for  his  advice,  and  Washington 
for  his  indecision,  whereby  the  untenable  position  had  not 
been  evacuated.  This  was  one  of  the  events  upon  which 
the  opposition  to  Washington  relied  for  his  disparagement. 
As  a  division  commander  General  Greene  had  taken  part 
in  the  battle  of  Trenton,  at  Brunswick,  at  Brandywine,  at 
Germantown,  and  at  Monmouth ;  also  at  the  siege  of  New- 
port, Rhode  Island,  under  Sullivan.  At  Washington's  re- 
quest, in  1778,  he  had  taken  charge  of  the  quartermaster's 
department,  then  in  a  state  of  chaos,  upon  the  condition, 
however,  that  he  should  not  lose  his  right  of  command  in 
action  —  a  condition  which  he  enforced  at  the  battle  of 
Monmouth.  Though  Washington,  who  had  practically 
forced  the  office  upon  him,  declared  that  he  had  performed 
the  duties  of  the  position  to  his  satisfaction,  it  cannot  be 

1  Great  Commanders  Series,  General  Greene,  by  Francis  Vinton  Greene, 
1893,  23-24. 


4  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

said  that  he  had  made  any  marked  success  in  that  depart- 
ment —  his  administration  of  it,  indeed,  was  assailed  as  in- 
competent and  extravagant,  and  even  grave  charges  were 
intimated,  but  as  these  were  attributed  to  the  same  source 
as  the  calumny  against  Washington  himself,  they  were 
treated  alike.^     His  abrupt,  if  justifiable,  resignation  in 

1  We  do  not  wish  to  encumber  these  pages  with  anything  unnecessary 
to  the  history  of  South  Carolina,  to  which  this  work  is  devoted.  We  shall 
not  therefore  go  at  any  length  into  the  controversy  of  the  times  in  regard 
to  the  administration  of  the  quartermaster's  department  by  General 
Greene  in  1778-80,  but  will  content  ourselves  generally  with  Washing- 
ton's assurance  that  he  had  conducted  the  various  important  duties  of  it 
with  capacity  and  diligence,  and  altogether  to  his  satisfaction,  Washing- 
ton adding,  "  and  as  far  as  I  had  any  opportunity  of  knowing,  with  the 
strictest  integrity."  (Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  147.)  In  view, 
however,  of  events  which  occurred  at  the  close  of  his  command  in  South 
Carolina,  clouding  his  reputation,  but  from  which  it  is  fair  to  say  that  Con- 
gress, as  far  as  it  could,  ultimately  vindicated  his  memory,  we  must  add 
that  very  recently  it  has  come  to  light,  that,  upon  assuming  the  duties  of 
that  office.  General  Greene,  the  quartermaster,  and  Colonel  Wadsworth, 
the  commissary  general,  had  formed  a  secret  business  partnership  with 
Barnabas  Deane,  of  Connecticut,  the  brother  of  Silas  Deane,  under  the 
name  of  Barnabas  Deane  &  Co. ,  the  business  of  which  was  that  of  general 
traders  in  staples  and  manufactures  that  were  most  needed  for  the  use  of 
the  army,  or  that  could  be  most  advantageously  exchanged  for  provisions 
or  forage,  the  very  articles  of  which  these  officers,  as  quartermaster  and 
commissary  general  were  purchasers  for  the  government;  the  impro- 
priety of  which  will  be  more  appreciated  when  it  is  remembered  that  the 
emoluments  of  these  officers  consisted  in  commissions  upon  their  accounts. 
Moreover  that  it  appears  from  letters  of  General  Greene  which  have  been 
found  that  at  his  instance  the  most  profound  secrecy  was  observed  as  to 
the  connection  of  Colonel  Wadsworth  and  himself  with  the  matter, 
Greene  writing  to  Wadsworth  :  — 

"  You  may  remember  I  wrote  you  sometime  since  that  I  was  desirous 
that  this  copartnership  between  Mr.  Deane,  you,  and  myself  should  be 
kept  a  secret.  I  must  beg  leave  to  impress  this  matter  upon  you  again, 
and  to  request  you  to  enjoin  it  upon  Mr.  Deane.  The  nearest  friend  I  have 
in  the  world  shall  not  know  of  it  from  me,  and  it  is  my  wish  that  no 
mortal  person  should  be  acquainted  with  the  persons  forming  the  company 
excei:)t  us  three.     I  would  not  wish  Mr.  Deane  even  to  let  his  brother 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  5 

consequence,  in  1780,  had  nearly  lost  him  his  commission 
in  the  line  as  well.  Upon  the  treason  of  Arnold  he  had 
been  appointed  president  of  the  court  which  tried  and  con- 
demned Major  Andre  to  death ;  and  upon  his  application 
for  the  command  of  West  Point  it  had  been  immediately 
granted  him.  General  Washington  taking  occasion  to  ob- 
serve, however,  that  it  would  not  be  an  independent  com- 
mand, as  he  himself  would  probably  make  his  headquarters 
in  that  vicinity.  Such  was  the  career  of  the  officer  now 
sent  to  command  the  Southern  Department.  He  had  cer- 
tainly seen  some  service,  and  had  had  experience,  not  only 
in  the  field,  but,  what  was  of  importance,  in  the  administra- 
tive department  of  an  army  as  well.  He  had  not  as  yet, 
however,  exercised  an  independent  command,  nor  conducted 
a  battle  except  under  the  eye  and  direction  of  another. 
He  was  now  for  the  first  time  to  be  thrown  entirely  upon 
his  own  resources  in  the  field,  and  that  in  a  department 
which  covered  the  whole  country  south  of  Pennsylvania, 

know  it.  Not  that  I  apprehend  any  injury  from  him  ;  but  he  may  inad- 
vertently let  it  out  into  the  broad  world,  and  then,  I  am  persuaded,  it 
would  work  us  a  public  injury,"  etc. 

It  also  appears  that,  to  preserve  this  secrecy,  as  an  additional  precaution 
against  discovery  it  was  agreed  that  the  correspondence  between  the  par- 
ties should  be  conducted  partly  in  cipher  for  which  an"  alphabet  of  figures  " 
was  adopted,  Greene  urging  also  the  use  of  a  fictitious  name,  as  that 
would  "draw  another  shade  of  obscurity  over  the  business,  and  render  it 
impossible  to  find  out  their  connection."  Nevertheless,  the  author  from 
whose  article  this  account  is  taken  closes  his  paper  with  this  statement, 
"  The  business  reputation  of  the  firm  [i.e.  Barnabas  Deane  &  Co.]  was 
high  at  home  and  abroad  ;  the  integrity  and  honor  of  its  partners  with- 
out stain  ;  nor  is  there  a  vestige  of  evidence  that  its  founders  took  undue 
advantage  of  their  official  positions  to  extend  the  business  or  increase  the 
profits  of  the  firm." 

See  the  whole  story  in  an  article  over  the  signature  of  J.  Hammond 
Trumbull,  LL.D.,  entitled  "A  business  Firm  of  the  Revolution,  Barnabas 
Deane  &  Co.,"  in  vol.  XII  (1884)  of  the  Magazine  of  American  History 
loith  Notes  and  Queries,  edited  by  Mrs.  Martha  J.  Lamb,  pp.  17-28. 


6  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

and  in  which  as  yet  no  Continental  officer  had  achieved 
success  or  glory. 

The  appointment  of  General  Greene  had  been  solicited 
by  John  Mathews,  a  delegate  in  Congress  from  South 
Carolina,  who,  as  chairman  of  the  committee  of  that  body 
conferring  with  Washington  upon  the  condition  of  the 
army,  was  in  a  position  to  entitle  his  opinion,  as  to  the 
choice  of  a  commander,  to  great  weight,  to  which  he  added 
the  assurance  that  he  was  authorized  to  make  the  request 
by  the  delegates  of  the  three  Southern  States.  ''  Besides 
my  own  inclination  to  this  choice,"  wrote  Washington  to 
Greene  on  the  14th  of  October,  1780,  informing  him  of  his  ap- 
pointment, "  I  have  the  satisfaction  to  inform  you  that  from 
a  letter  I  have  received  it  concurs  with  the  wishes  of  the 
delegates  of  the  three  Southern  States  most  immediately 
interested  in  the  present  operations  of  the  enemy,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  it  will  be  perfectly  agreeable  to  the  senti- 
ments of  the  whole."  ^  Writing  to  Mr.  Mathews  he  said, 
"  You  have  your  wish  in  the  officer  appointed  to  the  South- 
ern command  —  I  think  I  am  giving  you  a  general,  but 
what  can  a  general  do  without  men,  without  arms,  without 
clothing,  without  shoes,  without  provisions  ?  "  ^ 

General  Greene  was  at  West  Point,  to  the  command  of 
which  he  had  been  assigned,  as  we  have  seen,  when  he 
received  Washington's  letter  informing  him  of  his  new 
appointment.  Washington's  headquarters  were  at  the 
time  at  Prakeness,  near  Passaic  Falls,  in  New  Jersey, 
and  his  letter  informed  Greene  that  his  instructions 
would  be  prepared  when  he  arrived  there  on  his  journey  to 
his  new  field.  Greene  set  out  upon  his  journey  on  the  18th 
of  October,  and  found  his  instructions  at  headquarters,  as 
he  had  been  told  to  expect.  These  directed  him  to  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  the  Southern  army  in  North  Carolina  and 
1  Washington's  Writings,  vol.  VII,  257.  ^  Ibid.,  277. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  7 

to  take  command.  Uninformed  as  he  was,  wrote  Wash- 
ington, of  the  enemy's  force  in  that  quarter,  or  even  of 
their  own,  or  of  their  resources  for  carrying  on  the  war,  he 
could  give  no  positive  instructions,  but  must  leave  Greene 
to  govern  himself  entirely  according  to  his  own  prudence 
and  judgment.  Aware  that  the  nature  of  the  command 
w^ould  offer  embarrassment  of  a  singular  and  complicated 
nature,  he  relied,  he  said,  upon  Greene's  abilities  and  exer- 
tions for  everything  his  means  would  enable  him  to  effect. 
He  gave  him  a  letter  to  Congress  informing  that  body  of 
his  appointment,  and  requesting  them  to  afford  him  such 
support  as  the  situation  and  good  of  the  service  demanded. 
Greene  was  directed  to  take  the  orders  of  Congress  on  his 
way  to  his  command,  and  was  informed  that  Washington 
proposed  to  send  Baron  Steuben  to  the  South  with  him, 
whom  he  was  to  employ  as  Inspector  General  with  suit- 
able rank  if  Congress  approved,  and  that  he  had  put  Major 
Lee's  corps  under  marching  orders  to  join  him.^ 

Upon  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia,  General  Greene  pro- 
ceeded at  once  to  inform  himself  as  fully  as  he  could  of 
the  force  and  condition  of  the  Southern  army,  and  to  make 
provision  for  supplying  its  present  and  future  wants. 
From  Congress  he  could  obtain  nothing.  And  when  the 
depressed  credit  and  empty  coffers  of  Congress  dissipated 
every  hope  of  present  relief,  he  tried  to  obtain  a  voluntary 
contribution  or  loan  among  the  merchants  with  which  to 
procure  clothing  for  the  few  troops  in  the  field.  This  also 
failed.  Colonel  Joseph  Reed,  then  Governor  of  Pennsyl- 
vania,2  let  him  have  some  arms  from  the  depot  of  that  State, 
—  and  even  the  wagons  to  transport  them  were  principally 

1  Washington's  Writings,  vol.  VII,  271 ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol. 
I,  326. 

2  Colonel  Reed  is  spoken  of  by  Johnson  and  others  as  Governor,  and 
we  have  followed  the  usual  title  given  ;  but  he  was  not  in  fact  a  Gov- 


8  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAKOLINA 

obtained  from  liis  kindness  —  the  Governor  relying  on  the 
armories  of  the  United  States  and  the  pledge  of  Washing- 
ton for  his  indemnity.  All  the  support  or  encouragement 
General  Greene  received  from  Congress  was  the  annexa- 
tion of  Delaware  and  Maryland  to  his  department,  the 
money  to  bear  the  expense  of  his  journey  to  his  command, 
and  the  promise  to  promote  Major  Henry  Lee  to  a  lieu- 
tenant colonelcy.^ 

On  the  23d  of  November  General  Greene  took  his  way  to 
the  South,  accompanied  by  Baron  Steuben  and  his  two  aids, 
Major  Burnet  and  Colonel  Lewis  Morris,  Jr.^  By  the  re- 
duction of  the  Virginia  contingent  in  number  of  men  to 
each  regiment,  and  still  more  by  the  actually  reduced  state 
of  the  numbers  in  service,  many  officers  of  the  Virginia  Con- 
tinental line  were  now  out  of  employment,  and  from  these 
General  Greene  selected  the  additional  members  of  his 
staff.  Colonel  Edward  Carrington  was  appointed  Quarter- 
master General,  and  Captains  Nathaniel  Pendleton  and 
William  Pierce,  Jr.,  aides-de-camp.  To  Major  Robert 
Forsyth,  who  was  in  the  last  days  of  the  war  to  involve  him, 
whether  consciously  or  not,  in  a  most  corrupt  and  disgrace- 
ful affair,  he  offered  the  post  of  commissary  of  prisoners, 
and  upon  his  declining  it,  recommended  him  to  the  Com- 
missary General  for  the  post  of  his  deputy  in  the  Southern 
Department.^ 

In  the  grand  ministerial  plan  of  operations  by  which,  it 
will  be  recollected,  the  war  was  to  be  carried  by  the  Brit- 
ish "from  South  to  North,"  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  the  Com- 

ernor.  He  was  President  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  Pennsylvania,  an 
office  in  which  he  exercised  the  duties  of  Governor,  and  hence  so  called. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  I,  328. 

2  Ihid.^  329.  Heitnian  in  his  Register  of  Continental  Officers  gives 
Major  Burnet's  name  as  Robert ;  but  in  three  letters  in  the  Sumter  MSS., 
signed  by  him,  the  initial  J  is  used —  *'  J.  Burnet." 

8  Ibid.,  333. 


IN   THE  KEVOLUTION  9 

mander-in-chief,  was  to  have  sent  an  expedition  to  Virginia 
to  meet  the  victorious  Cornwallis  as  he  marched  in  triumph 
from  South  Carolina,  and  together  they  were  to  move  on 
to  Baltimore  and  then  on  farther  north.  This  plan,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  been  interrupted  by  the  partisan  bands 
of  the  South,  and  Lord  Cornwallis  had  been  compelled 
to  fall  back  to  Winnsboro  in  South  Carolina,  there  to 
wait  for  reenforcenients  under  Leslie,  who  had  been  de- 
spatched by  Sir  Henry  Clinton  to  Virginia  in  accordance 
with  the  plan,  but  who  was  now  diverted  to  South 
Carolina  to  make  up  for  the  losses  inflicted  upon  his 
lordship. 

On  reaching  Virginia,  General  Greene  found  that  the 
expedition  which  had  sailed  from  New  York  under  General 
Leslie  had,  in  obedience  to  first  orders,  put  into  Chesa- 
peake, and  that  Leslie  had  taken  possession  of  Norfolk 
and  Portsmouth,  and  had  proceeded  to  secure  possession 
of  both  places  by  strongly  fortifying  the  latter.  Corn- 
wallis's  orders  calling  him  to  his  assistance,  by  the  way  of 
Charlestown,  had  not  yet  reached  Leslie,  and  Virginia  was 
now  intent  only  on  her  own  defence  against  this  threaten- 
ing invasion.  Leaving  Baron  Steuben  to  command  in  that 
State,  Greene  pressed  on  to  Hillsboro.  Arriving  there,  he 
found  the  place  abandoned  both  by  the  officers  of  the 
State  and  the  Continental  army.  The  latter  had  been 
moved  forward  to  Charlotte,  and  the  invasion  of  Leslie 
had  frightened  the  former  away  to  Halifax  in  apprehension 
of  danger  to  that  quarter  of  North  Carolina.  Informing 
Governor  Nash  ^  at  Halifax  by  letter  that  he  had  provided 

1  Abner  Nash,  member  of  the  Provincial  Congress  of  North  Carolina 
in  177G,  speaker  of  that  body,  and  also  of  the  Senate  in  1779.  Gov- 
ernor from  1779  to  1781.  A  brother  of  General  Francis  Nash,  v^'ho  had 
commanded  the  First  North  Carolina  Continental  Regiment  at  the  battle 
of  Fort  Moultrie,  and  was  afterwards  killed  at  Germantown. 


10  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

for  the  defence  against  Leslie,  and  urging  that  the  Gov- 
ernor should  turn  his  attention  to  the  more  pressing  object 
of  preparing  to  meet  Lord  Cornwallis  in  the  opposite  quar- 
ter, he  hurried  on  to  Charlotte,  where  he  arrived  on  the  2d 
of  December,  and  assumed  command  on  the  4th,  1780. 

On  reaching  Charlotte,  Greene  found  that  he  had  under 
his  command  the  celebrated  Daniel  Morgan,  who  had 
served  with  him  at  the  siege  of  Boston,  and  afterwards 
had  joined  Arnold's  expedition  to  Canada,  in  which,  after 
suffering  great  hardships,  he  had  been  made  prisoner,  and 
upon  being  exchanged  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  at 
Saratoga,  but  had  since  resigned.  As  early  as  the  16th  of 
June,  Congress  had  directed  that  "  Daniel  ^lorgan  of  the 
Virginia  line  "  with  the  old  rank  of  Colonel  should  be  *'  em- 
ployed in  the  Southern  army  as  Major  General  Gates  should 
direct."  It  does  not  appear  that  Morgan  had  been  in  any 
haste  to  avail  himself  of  the  honor  of  serving  under  the 
hero  of  Saratoga ;  he,  himself  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
leaders  the  Revolution  had  produced,  like  Schuyler,  had 
had  just  cause  to  be  aggrieved  at  the  slight  recognition 
by  Gates  of  his  services  in  the  capture  of  Burgoyne.  But, 
when  two  months  after  his  appointment  he  heard  of  the 
defeat  at  Camden  and  dispersion  of  Gates's  army,  he  hurried 
to  the  scene  of  disaster,  and  before  the  end  of  September 
arrived  at  Hillsboro.^  He  brought  with  him  only  a  few 
followers  —  young  men  who  had  come  to  share  in  the  ser- 
vice and  honor  of  helping  to  retrieve  the  cause  in  the  South. 
Gates  had  gladly  welcomed  him,  and  had  drafted  four  hun- 
dred Continental  infantry  under  Lieutenant  Colonel 
Howard  of  the  Maryland  line,^  two  companies  of  Vir- 
ginia militia  under  Captains  Triplett  and  Taite,  and  the 

1  Bancroft's  Hist,  of  the  XJ.  S.,  vol.  V,  476  (ed.  1888). 

2  John  Eager  Howard  of  Maryland.  Then  commanding  Second  Mary- 
land Continental  Regiment. 


IN   THE  EEVOLUTION  11 

remnants  of  the  cavalry  of  Colonel  White  and  of  Colonel 
William  Washington,  which  had  been  cut  up  at  Lenud's 
Ferry  on  the  8th  of  May,  and  had  since  been  out  of  action, 
now  amounting  to  one  hundred  men,  as  an  independent  corps 
for  his  command.  ^  To  these  were  added  a  company  of 
sixty  riflemen  under  the  command  of  Major  Rose.  Colonel 
White,  who  was  in  disrepute,  had  been  given  a  leave  of 
absence.  In  the  meanwhile  Congress  had  promoted  Morgan 
to  the  rank  of  Brigadier  General,  his  commission  being 
dated  13th  of  October,  1780. 

General  Gates  had  made  some  reorganization  of  the 
shattered  fragments  of  his  army  before  the  arrival  of  General 
Greene.  The  remnants  of  the  Maryland  and  Delaware 
regiments  had  been  consolidated  into  one,  and  the  super- 
numerary officers  sent  to  their  respective  States  to  obtain 
recruits  and  prepare  them  for  service.  This  consolidated 
regiment  was  placed  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Otho 
H.  Williams  of  Maryland,^  and  to  it  was  added  a  company 
of  light  infantry.  About  the  16th  of  September,  Colonel 
Buford  had  arrived  from  Virginia  with  what  was  left  of 
his  unfortunate  regiment,^  reenforced  by  about  two  hundred 
raw  recruits,  all  of  them  in  ragged  condition  ;  and  on  the 
18th  the  remains  of  Colonel  Porterfield's  corps,*  about  fifty 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  222.  Johnson  puts  the  number 
of  White's  and  Washington's  cavalry  at  but  seventy.  Life  of  Greene^ 
vol.  I,  313. 

2  Otho  Holland  Williams  entered  the  service  as  First  Lieutenant,  Cresap's 
Company  Maryland  Riflemen,  June  21,  1775;  Major  of  Stephenson's 
Maryland  and  Virginia  Regiment  of  Riflemen,  June  27,  1776  ;  vsrounded 
at  Fort  Washington,  November  16,  1776 ;  Colonel  Sixth  Maryland, 
December  10,  1776;  transferred  to  First  Maryland,  January  1,  1781.— 
Heitman. 

8  For  an  account  of  the  defeat  and  slaughter  of  Buford's  regiment  on 
the  29th  of  May,  1780,  see  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80 
(McCrady),  619,  523. 

*  See  Ibid.,  674,  675. 


12  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

effective  men,  had  come  in  under  Captain  Drew.  General 
Gist  had  gone  home  to  Maryland  to  superintend  recruiting 
there.  General  Smallwood  had  remained,  as  he  was  com- 
missioned by, the  State  of  North  Carolina  to  a  command  in 
the  militia.  Upon  Cornwallis's  retreat,  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  Ferguson's  party  at  King's  Mountain,  Gates  had 
advanced  to  Charlotte,  and  Smallwood  had  taken  post  at 
Providence,  six  miles  below. 

Greene's  first  hours  of  command  were  brightened  by  the 
news  of  a  bloodless  success  by  Colonel  Washington. 
Colonel  Rowland  Rugeley,  at  whose  house,  it  will  be  recol- 
lected, Governor  Rutledge  had  nearly  been  overtaken  by 
Tarleton,  when  escaping  from  Charlestown  in  May,  ^  had 
since  been  commissioned  in  the  British  militia,  and  was 
just  about  to  be  appointed  a  Brigadier  General  in  that  ser- 
vice. A  stockade  had  been  made  around  his  house,  and  in 
it  he  had  collected  112  men  under  his  command.  Against 
this  post  Morgan  sent  Colonel  Washington  with  a  small 
force.  Washington,  repeating  Gillespie's  device  in  the 
capture  of  Mills's  militia  at  Hunt's  Bluff,  in  August,  ^  threw 
up  a  few  feet  of  earth  into  the  form  of  an  earthwork,  and, 
mounting  behind  it  some  logs  with  the  appearance  of  field 
guns,  demanded  an  immediate  surrender.  Rugeley,  de- 
ceived and  frightened  by  the  appearance  of  artillery,  obeyed 
the  summons  and  surrendered  with  his  whole  party.^ 
"  Rugeley  will  not  be  made  a  brigadier,"  wrote  Cornwallis 
to  Tarleton.  "  He  surrendered,  without  firing  a  shot,  him- 
self and  103  rank  and  file,  to  the  cavalry  only.  A  deserter 
of  Morgan  assures  us  that  the  infantry  men  never  came 
within  three  miles  of  the  house."* 

1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  lievolutAon,  1775-SO  (McCrady),  517. 

2  Ibid.,  646. 

8  Ramsay's  lievolution  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  187-188. 
*  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  205. 


IK   THE  REVOLUTION  13 

But  besides  this  pleasing  incident  Greene  found  the  con- 
dition of  things  deplorable  indeed.  The  whole  number  of 
regulars  by  the  returns  made  to  him  did  not  exceed  eleven 
hundred,  and  of  these  eight  hundred  could  not  be  mustered 
with  arms  and  clothing  fit  for  duty.  Such  was  the  condi- 
tion of  some  of  Washington's  few  cavalry  that  they  were 
ordered  back  to  Virginia,  upon  his  representation  that  they 
were  too  naked  to  be  put  upon  service.  The  country  around 
Charlotte  was  exhausted.  It  had  been  the  scene  of  opera- 
tion on  both  sides  for  the  last  six  months,  and  first  one 
army  and  then  the  other  had  lived  upon  it.  His  army  was 
then  subsisting  by  small  daily  collections  made  upon  the 
credit  and  by  the  influence  of  individuals  who  had  patriot- 
ically engaged  in  the  business.  Indeed,  the  country  about 
him  was  so  much  exhausted  that  Colonel  William  Polk, 
the  commissary  then  acting  as  such  from  mere  patriotism, 
declared  the  army  could  not  subsist  for  a  week  longer. 
To  draw  provisions  from  any  distance  was  impracticable 
for  want  of  the  means  of  transportation.  Colonel  Polk 
declined  any  longer  to  continue  the  struggle  to  supply  the 
army.  General  Greene  determined  at  once  to  remove  the 
army  to  another  position  and  to  find  a  commissary  .^ 

It  had  so  happened  that  just  at  this  time  Colonel  Davie 
had  left  the  field  in  disgust.  When  Cornwallis  fell  back 
from  Charlotte  in  October,  Davie,  with  three  hundred 
mounted  infantry,  had  advanced  and  occupied  the  out- 
post at  Landsford.  There  the  term  of  his  gallant  little 
band,  which  he  had  raised  and  equipped  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, expired  in  November.  General  Smallwood,  then  in 
command  of  the  North  Carolina  State  troops,  entertaining 
the  highest  opinion  of  Davie's  military  talents,  desired  to 
retain  his  services,  and  at  his  suggestion  application  for 
the  purpose  was  made  to  the  "  Board  of  War "  of  North 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  337,  342. 


14  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Carolina,  then  sitting  at  Halifax.  This  board,  lately  cre- 
ated with  extraordinary  powers,  overshadowed  the  Gov- 
ernor, though  by  the  constitution  the  latter  was  "  captain 
general  and  commander-in-chief."  It  was  given  to  this 
board  "  to  have  the  direction  of  the  militia,  provide  am- 
munition, stores,  appoint  officers  and  remove  such  as  they 
might  deem  proper,  establish  posts,  and  carry  on  military 
operations."  The  board  was  composed  of  three  men  who 
were  unfit  for  such  a  position  and  incompetent  for  the  du- 
ties. As  was  to  have  been  anticipated,  collisions  occurred 
between  the  Governor  and  this  body.  Colonel  Davie's  ap- 
plication made  to  the  board  was  by  it  referred  to  the  Gov- 
ernor, and  between  the  two  it  was  not  even  considered. 
Greatly  offended  at  such  treatment.  Colonel  Davie  retired. 
It  was  just  at  this  time  that  General  Greene,  in  need  of  one 
to  fill  the  position  of  commissary,  who  possessed  talents, 
integrity,  influence,  and  zeal,  appealed  to  Davie  to  under- 
take the  duties.  It  has  been  seen  that  the  talents  and 
courage  of  this  officer  particularly  fitted  him  for  command 
in  the  field ;  combining,  as  it  was  said  of  him,  the  dash  of 
Sumter  and  the  caution  of  Marion.  His  tastes  and  ambi- 
tion were  all  for  active  service.  The  office  of  commissary 
involved  labor,  untiring  exertion,  and  great  responsibility, 
while  it  could  add  to  him  but  little  honor  and  no  oppor- 
tunity of  distinction.  No  one  knew  better  than  Greene 
himself  the  sacrifice  it  would  cost  one  of  Davie's  tempera- 
ment to  accept  the  duties  of  such  a  position,  for  he  himself 
had  gone  through  the  same  trial  when  taken  from  the  field 
by  Washington  and  made  Quartermaster  General.  Indig- 
nantly he  had  then  written  to  Washington  :  "  There  is  a 
great  difference  from  being  raised  to  an  office  and  descend- 
ing to  one,  which  is  my  case.  There  is  also  a  great  differ- 
ence between  serving  where  you  have  a  fair  prospect  of 
honor  and  laurels,  and  where  you  have  no  prospect  of 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  15 

either,  let  you  discharge  your  duties  ever  so  well. 
Nobody,"  he  contemptuously  adds,  "  ever  heard  of  a 
quartermaster  in  history."  ^  Taught  by  experience  the 
sentiments  of  one  who,  like  Davie,  had  exhibited  such 
genius  for  the  field,  he  does  not  seek  to  find  a  position  in 
which  Davie's  great  talents  might  further  be  displayed  to 
the  benefit  of  the  country,  but,  as  Washington  had  called 
upon  him,  he  called  upon  Davie.  Fortunately,  strong  as 
was  Davie's  love  of  fame,  his  love  for  his  country  was 
stronger.  Ill  suited  as  were  the  duties  of  the  position  to 
his  stirring  and  chivalric  temper,  his  patriotism  overrode  all 
personal  ambition.  He  did  not  stop  to  complain  that  no  one 
ever  heard  of  a  commissary  in  history,  but  accepted  at  once 
the  trust,  and  from  this  time  he  became  the  faithful  sub- 
ordinate, confidant,  and  friend  of  Greene.  Performing  the 
arduous  duties  of  supplying  the  army  with  subsistence,  his 
previous  knowledge  of  the  country  and  experience  in  the 
field  were  always  as  much  at  the  service  of  his  chief  as  if  he 
was  to  share  the  honors  to  which  they  contributed.  To  the 
appointment  of  commissary  in  the  Continental  army  in  be- 
half of  the  United  States,  were  added  also  appointments 
of  State  commissary  both  for  North  and  South  Carolina. ^ 

On  the  16th  of  December  the  troops  were  put  under 
marching  orders,  but  incessant  rains  prevented  them  from 
abandoning  their  huts  until  the  20th.  On  that  day 
they  took  up  the  line  of  march  by  Wadesboro  to  Haley's 
Ferry,  where  it  was  originally  designed  they  should  be 
posted,  but  on  the  recommendation  of  Kosciuszko,  who 
accompanied  General  Greene  as  an  engineer,  they  were 
moved  down  the  east  side  of  the  Fee  Dee  nearly  opposite 
Cheraw  Hill,  the  present  site  of   the  town  of    Cheraw, 

^  Nathanael  Greene,  Great  Commanders  Series  (F.  V.  Greene),  97. 
a  Wheeler's  Hist,  of  No.  Ca.,  196  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I, 
342  ;  vol.  II,  116. 


16  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

then  known  as  Chatham,  in  South  Carolina.^  On  this 
march  the  troops  were  under  the  immediate  command  of 
General  Isaac  Huger,  who,  it  will  be  recollected,  had  been 
in  Gates's  army,  and  was  one  of  the  few  officers  of  the 
Carolina  Continental  line  not  then  in  captivity. 

On  the  day  the  army  was  put  under  marching  orders  for 
the  Pee  Dee  Morgan's  corps  was  ordered  to  cross  the 
Catawba  and  threaten  the  position  of  Lord  Cornwallis  at 
Winnsboro.  He  was  directed  to  move  down  the  west  side 
of  the  Catawba,  where  he  would  be  joined  by  a  body  of 
volunteer  militia  of  North  Carolina  under  the  command 
of  General  Davidson,  and  by  the  volunteers  lately  under 
the  command  of  General  Sumter.  This  force,  with  any 
other  Avhich  might  join  him  from  Georgia,  he  was  to 
employ  either  offensively  or  defensively,  as  his  prudence 
and  discretion  might  direct.  Morgan  was  given  entire 
command  west  of  the  Catawba,  and  all  officers  and  soldiers 
engaged  in  the  American  cause  were  enjoined  to  obey  him. 

General  Greene  was  much  pleased  with  the  position  he 
had  taken  on  the  Pee  Dee.  Judge  Johnson,  his  biographer, 
gives  this  summary  of  his  views  in  regard  to  it  as  expressed 
to  his  friends :  ^  — 

"  I  am  here  in  ray  camp  of  repose,  improving  the  discipline  and  the 
opportunity  for  looking  about  me.  I  am  well  satisfied  with  the  move- 
ment, for  it  has  answered  thus  far  all  the  purposes  for  which  I  intended 
it.  It  makes  the  most  of  my  inferior  force,  for  it  compels  my  adver- 
sary to  divide  his,  and  holds  him  in  doubt  as  to  his  own  line  of  con- 
duct. He  cannot  leave  Morgan  behind  him  to  come  at  me,  or  his 
posts  at  Ninety  Six  or  Augusta  would  be  exposed.  And  he  cannot 
chase  Morgan  far,  or  i>rosecute  his  views  upon  Virginia,  while  I  am 
here  with  the  whole  country  open  before  me.  I  am  as  near  Charles- 
town  as  he  is  and  as  near  Hillsborough  as  I  was  at  Charlotte;  so  that 
I  am  in  no  danger  of  being  cut  off  from  my  reeuforcements,  while  an 
uncertainty  as  to  my  future  designs  has  made  it  necessary  to  leave  a 

1  Gregg's  Old  Cheraws,  119.  2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  350. 


IN    THE    REVOLUTION  17 

large  detachment  of  the  enemy's  late  reenforcements  in  Charlestown 
and  move  the  rest  up  this  side  of  the  Wateree.  But  although  there 
is  nothing  to  obstruct  my  march  to  Charlestown,  I  am  far  from  having 
siicli  a  design  in  contemplation  in  the  present  relative  positions  of  the 
two  armies.  It  would  be  putting  it  in  the  power  of  my  enemy  to 
compel  me  to  fight  him.  At  present  my  operations  must  be  in  the 
country  where  the  rivers  are  fordable,  and  to  guard  against  the  chance 
of  not  being  able  to  choose  my  own  ground." 

These  comfortable  assurances  were  soon  to  be  rudely 
dispelled. 

So  effectual  had  been  the  work  of  the  partisan  bands,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  Lord  Cornwallis  had  been  forced  to  fall 
back  from  Charlotte  to  Winnsboro,  and  instead  of  his  tri- 
umphal advance  to  Baltimore  and  thence  on  farther  north, 
his  lordship  had  been  compelled  to  send  orders  to  Leslie  to 
abandon  his  former  instructions,  and  to  proceed  by  sea  to 
Charlestown  and  thence  to  reenforce  him  in  the  interior. 
While,  therefore,  Greene  was  lying  in  the  "camp  of 
repose "  at  Cheraws,  this  movement  on  the  part  of  the 
British  was  taking  place,  and  before  the  middle  of  Decem- 
ber General  Leslie  arrived  at  Charlestown  with  2300  men 
and  found  orders  awaiting  him  to  join  his  lordship  with 
the  Brigade  of  the  Guards,  the  Hessian  regiment  of  von 
Bose,  120  yagers,  and  a  detachment  of  light  dragoons, 
amounting  in  all  to  1530  men.  The  remainder  of  Leslie's 
corps  was  destined  to  strengthen  Lord  Rawdon  at  Camden, 
and  the  garrison  at  Charlestown. ^ 

While  General  Greene  was  moving  down  to  the  Cheraws, 
Marion  had  been  engaged  in  some  very  active  movements 
against  the  British  garrison  at  Nelson's  Ferry,  under  Majors 
Mc  Arthur  and  Coffin  ;^  and  between  that  and  the  High  Hills 
of  Santee.     To  cut  off  his  retreat  by  the  Pee  Dee,  a  strong 

1  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  184,  210. 

2  Major  Archibald  McArthur  of  the  Seventy-first  Eegiment,  and  Major 
John  Coffin  of  the  New  York  Loyal  Volunteers. 


18  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

British  detachment  had  been  pushed  on  from  Charlestown. 
But  Marion  soon  secured  intelligence  of  the  movement, 
and  divining  its  object  retired  across  the  country,  and  took 
a  strong  position  on  the  north  bank  of  Lynch's  Creek,  in 
the  vicinity  of  his  favorite  retreat  at  Snow  Island,  where 
he  kept  a  party  to  guard  his  boats  and  awe  the  Loyalists. 
From  this  point  he  communicated  to  General  Greene,  on 
the  27th  of  December,  the  arrival  of  General  Leslie,  and 
successively,  Leslie's  march  for  Camden,  the  return  of  a 
detachment  which  had  marched  to  Georgetown,  and  the 
establishment  of  Colonel  Watson  near  Nelson's  Ferry  with 
about  two  hundred  men.^ 

Colonel  Pickens  and  other  influential  men  in  Ninety  Six 
District  had  been  often  urged  to  resume  their  arms  in  the 
American  cause  ;  but  to  these  appeals  and  remonstrances 
Pickens  had,  hitherto,  consistently  replied  that  his  honor 
was  pledged  and  that  he  was  bound  by  the  solemnity  of  an 
oath  not  to  take  up  arms  unless  the  conditions  of  that  pro- 
tection were  violated  by  the  British,  or  those  who  acted 
under  the  Royal  government.  Hitherto,  Cornwallis's  inju- 
dicious and  cruel  order,  after  the  battle  of  Camden,  had  not 
been  rigorously  enforced  in  this  region ;  but  the  time  had 
now  come  when  neutrality,  even  under  the  terms  of  paroles, 
would  no  longer  be  allowed ;  and  this  district,  which  since 
the  fall  of  Charlestown  had  taken  little  part  in  the  struggle, 
was  now  to  be  the  scene,  not  only  of  military  operations,  but 
of  a  civil  strife  far  more  terrible  than  legitimate  warfare.  All 
now  who  refused  to  take  up  arms  in  support  of  the  British 
government  were  plundered  of  their  property  by  parties  of 
Loyalists  and  British  troops. 

Chief  among  these  marauders  was  Major  James  Dunlap,^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  I,  358.  Lieutenant  Colonel  John 
Watson-Tadwell  Captain  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  Foot  Guards. — Index 
to  Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy  (Stevens). 

2  Of  the  origin  of  this  officer  we  have  no  account. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  19 

who  had  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  operations  in  the 
Spartan  section  during  the  preceding  summer.  He  was  a 
man  of  enterprise,  a  captain  in  the  Queen's  Rangers,  a  par- 
tisan corps  raised  in  the  fall  of  1776  from  native  Loyalists, 
mostly  refugees  from  Connecticut  and  from  the  vicinity  of 
New  York.  He  was  one  of  the  officers  picked  by  Ferguson 
for  his  select  corps  on  coming  to  South  Carolina.  He  had 
already  exhibited  a  most  sanguinary  disposition  in  the 
operations  in  New  Jersey,  and  had  rendered  himself  infa- 
mous there  by  his  barbarity.  In  the  South  his  severities 
had  already  incensed  the  people  against  him.  ^  It  has  been 
seen  how  he  had  sabred  the  sleeping  Georgians  at  Earle's 
Ford, 2  the  prominent  part  his  dragoons  had  taken  at  Cedar 
Spring,^  and  that  he  had  been  wounded  at  Cowan's  Ford 
in  North  Carolina  just  before  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain.  * 
When  Ferguson  fell  back  from  North  Carolina  to  King's 
Mountain,  Dunlap  had  been  left  wounded  at  the  house  of 
William  Gilbert.  There  he  is  said  to  have  been  attacked 
and  shot  through  the  body,  while  lying  in  bed,  in  revenge 
for  the  death,  by  his  hands,  of  Whigs  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  more  especially  for  the  death  of  a  young  woman  whom 
he  had  abducted  and  who  died  while  in  his  power.  ^     It 

1  King's  Mountain  and  its  Heroes^  159. 

2  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  614. 
«/&id,637. 

*76iU,  755. 

6  Draper  has  presented  the  following  interesting  story  as  illustrating 
the  times,  and  especially  the  character  of  this  officer  :  — 

Major  Dunlap  when  wounded  at  Cowan's  Ford  had  been  removed  to 
the  house  of  Captain  Gilbert,  a  loyal  supporter  of  the  King,  who  had  gone 
on  with  Ferguson,  Soon  after  he  was  taken  in  there,  a  party  from  the 
Fair  Forest  region  rode  up,  and  Captain  Gillespie,  their  leader,  asked  Mrs. 
Gilbert  if  Major  Dunlap  was  not  in  the  house.  She,  supposing  that  the 
party  were  Loyalists  with  some  important  communication  for  him,  frankly 
replied  that  he  was.  She  was  soon  disabused  of  her  mistake,  for  the 
party  told  her  that  Dunlap  had  been  instrumental  in  putting  some  of  their 


20  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

was  supposed  by  many  that  Dunlap  had  died  of  his  wounds 
at  that  time,  but  he  had  not.  He  recovered,  and  as  soon 
as  he  was  able  to  ride  was  conveyed  to  Ninety  Six.  Indeed, 
neither  wound  received  at  that  time  could  have  been  very 
serious,  for  he  now,  in  December,  but  two  months  after, 
was  again  in  the  field  at  the  head  of  his  dragoons,  plunder- 
ing and  murdering  as  before.  With  his  own  troops  and 
parties  of  Loyalists  he  made  a  general  sweep  over  the  coun- 
try. Colonel  Pickens's  house,  notwithstanding  his  prom- 
ised protection,  was  plundered,  and  his  property  wantonly 
destroyed.  Colonel  McCall's  family  was  left  without  a 
change  of  clothing  or  bedding,  and  a  halter  put  around  the 
neck  of  one  of  his  sons,  by  order  of  Dunlap,  with  threats 
of  execution,  to  extort  secrets  of  which  the  youth  was 
ignorant. 

Colonel  Pickens,  who  had  so  stedfastly  observed  his 
parole,  as  involving  his  personal  honor,  now  considered 
its  conditions  broken,  and  with  many  of  his  former  officers 
and  men  determined  to  resume  their  arms  in  defence  of 
their  country.  But  Pickens  was  not  one,  even  under 
such  circumstances,  to  steal  away  quietly  without  openly 
avowing  his  purpose.  As  soon  as  his  determination  was 
taken,  he  sought  an  interview  with  Captain  Ker,  a  British 
officer   at  White    Hall,   General   Williamson's   residence, 

friends  to  death,  and  had,  moreover,  abducted  the  beautiful  Mary  McRea. 
This  lady  was  the  affianced  of  Captain  Gillespie  himself,  and  Dunlap  had 
seized  and  carried  her  off,  as  she  would  not  encourage  his  amorous  advances, 
and  had  kept  her  in  confinement  under  which  she  had  died  of  a  broken 
heart.  The  party  had  come  for  revenge.  Gillespie,  uttering  imprecations 
upon  the  head  of  the  man  who  had  destroyed  his  earthly  hopes,  mounted 
the  stairs,  and  rushing  into  the  room  where  Dunlap  lay  in  bed,  demanded, 
"  Where  is  Mary  McRea  ?  "  "In  heaven,"  was  the  reply.  Whereupon 
Gillespie  shot  him  through  the  body,  and,  supposing  him  dead,  he  and  his 
party,  mounting  their  horses,  rode  away.  This,  says  Draper,  is  the  tradi- 
tion sifted  and  collected  as  preserved  in  the  Hampton  family. —  King^s 
Mountain  and  its  Heroes,  159,  160. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  21 

with  whom  he  had  become  very  intimate,  to  whom  he 
disclosed  liis  intentions  and  assigned  his  reasons.  Ker 
earnestly  advised  him  against  the  measure,  assuring  him 
that  his  execution  was  certain,  in  case  he  should  thereafter 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Britisli,  and  that  he  would  liter- 
ally fight  with  a  halter  around  his  neck  ;  that  though  their 
countries  were  at  war,  he  had  given  him  proofs  of  personal 
friendship,  and  ardently  hoped  he  might  never  fall  into  the 
power  of  the  British  government.  To  this  Colonel  Pickens 
replied  that  he  had  honorably  and  conscientiously  adhered 
to  the  rules  laid  down  in  his  protection,  but  that  he  now 
considered  himself  completely  absolved  from  its  obligations 
by  the  plunder  and  wanton  waste  which  had  been  com- 
mitted upon  his  plantation,  and  the  insults  and  indignities 
which  had  been  offered  to  his  family.  He  requested  Cap- 
tain Ker  to  communicate  these  remarks  to  Colonel  Cruger, 
the  commanding  officer  at  Ninety  Six,  and  to  thank  him  for 
his  civilities  while  he  was  under  the  protection  of  the 
British  government. 

This  state  of  things  was  communicated  to  the  com- 
manding officer  of  the  Georgia  troops,  who  made  another 
diversion  into  the  neighborhood  of  Ninety  Six,  to  favor  the 
assemblage  of  Pickens  and  his  friends  in  that  quarter.  At 
a  council  of  ofBcers,  Colonel  McCall  was  sent  to  invite  the 
cooperation  of  Colonel  Pickens;  and  Major  Samuel  Ham- 
mond was  despatched  to  White  Hall  to  Williamson,  who, 
it  will  be  recollected,  upon  the  fall  of  Charlestown,  had  in 
vain  urged  his  companions  and  followers  in  Ninety  Six  to 
retreat  with  him  into  North  Carolina  to  carry  on  the  war 
there, but  who,  accepting  their  decision,  had  given  his  parole 
and  taken  protection,  to  appeal  to  him,  now  that  the  British 
had  violated  its  terms,  once  more  to  join  his  old  friends  in 
resistance.  Major  Hammond  indeed  was  directed  to  seize 
his  person  and  to  bring  him  into  camp,  with  or  without  his 


22  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

consent.  This  plan  was  probably  resorted  to  upon  the  hope 
that  Williamson,  if  involuntarily  recaptured  by  the  Amer- 
icans, would  regard  himself  as  released  thereby  from  his 
parole.  This  hope  was  encouraged  by  the  friendly  dispo- 
sition which  the  General  had  evinced  to  the  families  of 
those  who  had  espoused  and  adhered  to  the  cause  of  their 
country.  But  though  willing  six  months  before,  in  the 
very  darkest  days  of  the  war,  to  leave  his  home  and  con- 
tinue the  struggle,  even  in  another  State  if  necessary, 
Williamson  would  not  now  resume  his  arms  and  rejoin  his 
friends.  He  was  taken  by  Hammond  and  brought  to  the 
Whig  encampment  at  Long  Cane  ;  but  he  escaped  and  made 
his  way  to  Charlestown.  It  was  generally  believed  that 
there  he  took  a  British  commission,  but  there  is  no  evidence 
of  his  having  done  so,  and  he  certainly  did  not  engage  in 
any  active  military  movement  in  their  service.  Indeed,  it 
is  said  that  he  was  one  of  those  in  the  town  from  whom 
General  Greene  later  obtained  information  of  the  British 
movements  through  the  influence  of  Colonel  John  Laurens.^ 
Colonel  Pickens  being  the  senior  militia  officer  in  Ninety 
Six,  in  the  absence  of  Williamson,  assumed  the  command 
of  such  of  the  men  of  that  District  as  would  act  with  him, 
and  marched  towards  the  Pacolet  River  to  join  Morgan. 

Pickens  was  a  great  accession  to  the  patriot  cause.  He 
was  younger  than  either  Sumter  or  Marion,  had  not  the 
experience  in  war  of  either  of  them,  but  he  had  exhibited 
in  the  action  at  Kettle  Creek  enterprise  and  ability.  These 
qualities  he  was  still  more  to  illustrate,  and  to  render  mili- 
tary service  of  high  order.  But  it  was  the  weight  of  his 
high  personal  character  which  now  brought  so  much  influ- 
ence to  the  cause  of  the  country.  His  extreme  conscien- 
tiousness in  regard  to  the  observance  of  his  parole  now 

1  McCall's  Hist,  of  Qa.,  353  ;  Johnson's  Traditions,  148-164  ;  Johnson's : 
Life  of  Greene. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  23 

rendered  his  conduct  all  the  more  important  to  the  cause 
of  liberty.  Many  would  now  follow  his  example  who 
would  not  have  been  influenced  by  him  had  he  more  lightly 
absolved  himself  from  the  restraints  of  his  given  word. 
Fully  understanding  the  warning  of  Captain  Ker,  he  and 
many  of  his  followers  devoted  their  lives  to  the  cause, 
knowing  that  for  them  there  would  be  no  quarter  if  taken 
by  the  enemy,  but  that  ignominious  death  would  be  their 
certain  fate.  They  entered  the  war  again,  as  Captain  Ker 
had  warned  Pickens,  literally  with  the  halter  around  their 
necks.  Men  who  knowingly  faced  such  consequences  and 
so  dared  to  die  were  not  easily  to  be  conquered. 

In  obedience  to  Greene's  order,  Morgan  had  crossed  the 
Catawba,  and  moved  through  what  is  now  York  County, 
had  crossed  the  Broad  River  above  the  mouth  of  the  Paco- 
let,  into  what  is  now  Union  County,  and  there  on  the  25th 
of  December  took  post  at  Grindal's  Shoals  on  the  Pacolet. 
Here  Pickens,  with  Colonel  McCall,  joined  him,  at  the  head 
of  about  one  hundred  men,  sending  their  families  and  slaves 
over  the  mountain  for  security. 

On  the  second  day  after  Morgan's  arrival  on  the  Pacolet, 
an  opportunity  for  enterprise  presented  itself  which  was 
promptly  embraced.  A  body  of  Loyalists  had  advanced 
from  the  Savannah  to  Fair  Forest  Creek,  to  check  the  spirit 
of  disaffection  to  British  interests  which  had  begun  to  man- 
ifest itself  there,  and  had  commenced  their  depredations 
upon  settlements  on  that  stream.  Their  distance  was 
about  twenty  miles  in  advance  of  Morgan's,  in  the  direction 
towards  Ninety  Six,  and  their  number  was  reputed  at  250. 
Colonel  Washington,  with  his  cavalry  of  75  only  in  number, 
but  of  very  superior  quality,  and  200  mounted  volunteers 
under  Lieutenant-Colonel  McCall,  consisting  of  a  selection 
from  his  own  men  and  Clarke's  Georgians  now  under  the 
command  of  Major  John  Cunningham,  were  despatched  to 


24  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH    CAROLINA 

dislodge  this  body  of  Loyalists.  The  latter,  learning  of  the 
approacli  of  Washington,  retreated  about  twenty  miles  to 
a  place  called  Hammond's  Store,  in  what  is  now  Abbeville 
County,  wliere,  being  covered  as  they  supposed  on  their 
right  by  Lord  Cornwallis  at  Winnsboro,  and  on  their  left 
by  the  post  at  Ninety  Six,  they  halted  in  mistaken  security. 
Washington  pressed  the  pursuit  with  such  rapidity  and 
diligence  that  he  overtook  them  early  the  next  day,  the  3d 
of  December,  after  a  march  of  forty  miles,  and  instantly 
charged  them.  It  was  a  flight  and  not  a  conflict  that 
ensued.  The  killed  and  wounded  of  the  enemy  were  re- 
ported at  150  and  the  prisoners  at  40.  There  was  little 
time  for  hesitation  or  room  for  pursuit,  for  AVashington 
was  now  so  far  advanced  between  the  enemy's  posts,  and 
so  near  Tarleton,  at  the  head  of  250  cavalry,  that  prompt 
measures  alone  could  assure  him  safety.  Washington  would 
not,  however,  forego  the  opportunity  of  striking  another 
blow. 

Robert  Cuningham,  who,  it  will  be  recollected,  had 
been  arrested  by  Williamson  in  1775  and  sent  to  Charles- 
town,  where  he  had  moderately,  but  firmly,  refused  to 
recognize  the  authority  of  the  new  government,  and  whose 
arrest  had  created  such  indignation  in  the  back  country, 
continuing  true  to  his  allegiance  to  the  King,  had  now 
been  appointed  by  Cornwallis  Brigadier  of  the  Loyal  mili- 
tia, as  one  who  had  by  far  the  greatest  influence  in  that 
region. 1  He  was  now  posted  in  the  stockade  fort  at  Fer- 
guson's former  camp  at  Williamson's  plantation  with  about 
150  men.     Thither  Colonel  Hayes  ^  at  the  head  of  a  detach- 


1  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  205. 

2  Colonel  Joseph  Hayes  of  Saluda  served  first  as  captain  in  all  or  nearly- 
all  of  the  services  peformed  by  Colonel  Williams  in  Georgia,  Brier  Creek, 
Stono  campaign  against  the  Chciokees,  and  at  Savannah ;  and  in  1780  at 
Hanging  Rock,  Musgrove's  Mills,  and  King's  Mountain,  where  he  succeeded 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  25 

ment  of  infantry  and  Cornet  Simons ^  with  a  detachment  of 
the  cavahy  were  immediately  despatched.  As  soon  as  tlie 
Americans  were  discovered  General  Cuningham  and  all 
his  men  abandoned  the  fort.  Cornet  Simons,  coming  up, 
stationed  his  detachment  and,  advancing  with  a  flag,  de- 
manded their  surrender.  Cuningham  requested  time  to 
consult  his  officers  and  five  minutes  were  given  him  for 
the  purpose.  In  that  short  time  the  whole  body  of  Tories 
ran  off  and  dispersed  through  the  woods.  A  few  of  them 
wore  killed  and  some  were  taken.  The  fort,  which  con- 
tained a  great  deal  of  plander  taken  from  the  Whig  in- 
habitants, and  was  w^ell  stored  with  forage  grain  and  other 
provisions  for  the  use  of  the  British  army,  was  destroyed  .^ 

to  the  command  of  Williams's  men  on  his  death.  He  was  also  at  Black- 
stock,  and  at  Hammond's  Store.  —  Kiiufs  3Iountain  and  its  Heroes 
(Draper),  467-408. 

1  Cornet  James  Simons.  This  officer  was  the  only  Continental  officer 
(or  as  far  as  is  known  Continental  soldier)  from  South  Carolina  in  this 
battle. 

2  Ramsay's  Bevolution  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  195-196  ;  Johnson's  Life  of 
Greene,  vol.  I,  363. 


CHAPTER  II 

1781 

When  the  year  1781  came  in  it  found  Greene  with  his 
small  army  at  the  Cheraws  on  the  Pee  Dee,  the  position 
with  which  he  was  so  much  pleased;  while  Morgan  at 
Grindal's  Shoals  on  the  Pacolet  was  threatening  Ninety 
Six,  and  Marion  from  Snow  Island  was  pushing  his  scout- 
ing parties  on  the  road  to  Charlestown,  his  foraging  parties 
nearly  to  Georgetown,  and  bringing  in  provisions  to  his 
snug  retreat.  Cornwallis,  preparing  for  another  attempt 
to  carry  out  the  ministerial  plan  of  carrying  the  war  from 
South  to  North  by  an  advance  into  North  Carolina,  still 
lay  at  Winnsboro,  between  the  Catawba  and  the  Broad, 
with  about  thirty-five  hundred  fighting  men  ^ ;  and  Leslie 
was  on  the  march  to  join  Cornwallis  with  fifteen  hundred 
more. 2  Leslie,  instead  of  approaching  Cornwallis  by 
Granby  ^  on  the  Congaree  and  marching  up  the  Wateree  or 
Catawba,  his  shortest  route,  was  by  his  lordship's  orders 
moving  by  the  old  way  of  Nelson's  Ferry  to  Camden,  thus 
placing  a  deep  and  rapid  river  and  often  impracticable 
swamps  between  the  reenforcements  he  was  bringing  and 
the  main  army.  Cornwallis  had  directed  Leslie  to  pursue 
this  route  because  of  Greene's  position  at  the  Cheraws, 
which  threatened  Camden,  and  in  order  also  to  mislead 
Greene  as  long  as  possible  as  to  his  own  intended  move- 
ment.    Leslie  was  much  retarded  by  the  waters  in  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  365. 

2  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  216. 

8  Granby,  or  Friday's  Ferry,  is  half  a  mile  below  present  city  of 
Columbia,  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Congaree. 

26 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  27 

swamps,  and  did  not  get  out  of  them  until  the  14th  of  Janu- 
ary; and  when  he  did  he  was  halted  at  Camden,  where 
he  remained  until  Cornwallis  was  ready  to  move  from 
Winnsboro.^ 

In  the  meanwhile  Morgan's  position  at  Grindal's  Shoals, 
Washington's  attack  and  slaughter  of  the  Tories  at  Ham- 
mond's Store  on  the  29th,  and  the  dispersion  of  Cuning- 
ham's  party  at  Williams's  plantation  on  the  30th  of  December 
alarmed  Cornwallis  for  the  safety  of  Ninety  Six,  an  alarm 
which  was  much  increased  by  the  growing  disaffection  in 
that  region  which  hitherto  had  been  the  most  loyal  to  the 
King  of  any  part  of  the  State.  Curiously,  too,  while  he  knew 
that  the  fortifications  at  Ninety  Six  were  sufficient  to  secure 
it  against  attack  unless  with  artillery,  he  had  failed  to  learn 
that  Morgan  was  entirely  deficient  in  that  arm  of  the  ser- 
vice. While  waiting  for  Leslie  to  struggle  through  the 
swamps,  Cornwallis  determined  to  check  the  disaffection 
in  the  western  part  of  the  province  and  to  clear  his  left 
flank  of  Morgan.  Accordingly,  on  the  1st  of  January,  he 
ordered  Tarleton  over  Broad  River  with  his  corps  of 
cavalry  and  infantry  of  550  men,  the  first  battalion  of  the 
Seventy-first  Regiment,  consisting  of  200,  and  two  three- 
pounders.  His  instructions  to  Tarleton  were  that  if  Mor- 
gan was  still  at  Williams's  plantation  or  anywhere  within 
his  reach  he  should  push  him  to  the  utmost.  With  his 
usual  celerity  Tarleton  obeyed  this  order,  and,  leaving  his 
baggage  behind,  crossed  the  Broad  at  Brierly's,  now  Stro- 
ther's.  Ferry  and  advanced  into  what  is  now  Union  County 
some  twenty  miles.  He  had  been  directed  by  his  lord- 
ship to  inquire  and  report  upon  the  condition  of  affairs  in 
this  region,  and,  finding  that  Washington  had  fallen  back 
to  Morgan  on  the  Pacolet,  and  hearing  that  the  reports  of 
the  rising  of  the  people  had  been  exaggerated,  he  halted 
1  Tarleton's  Campaigns  (notes),  148,  260. 


28  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

here  and  reported  to  Cornwallis  that  Ninety  Six  was  safe 
and  that  Morgan  was  far  distant.  He  requested  that  the 
baggage  which  he  had  left  behind  should  be  forwarded  to 
him,  and  asked  for  the  Seventeenth  Light  Dragoons  and  the 
Seventh  Regiment,  which  latter  he  proposed  to  send  to 
Ninety  Six  with  a  field-piece.  He  proposed  to  Cornwallis 
that  when  he  advanced  up  the  west  side  of  the  Broad  his 
lordship  should  advance  up  the  east,  so  that  when  he  drove 
Morgan's  corps  from  the  Pacolet  it  would  be  forced  to  re- 
cross  the  Broad  towards  King's  Mountain,  where  his  lord- 
ship would  be  ready  to  fall  upon  it.  To  this  plan  Cornwallis 
agreed,  and  sent  the  reenforcements  Tarleton  asked.  The 
Seventh  Regiment,  200  men,  and  50  dragoons  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Regiment  brought  his  baggage  to  Tarleton,  who 
then  received  permission  to  retain  the  Seventh  Regiment 
instead  of  sending  it  to  Ninety  Six. 

Cornwallis  moved  on  Sunday,  the  7th  of  January,  a  few 
miles  to  a  place  called  McAllister's,  and  wrote  Tarleton 
that  he  would  remain  there  till  Tuesday,  the  9th,  march 
to  the  crossroads  on  Wednesday,  halt  Thursday,  and  reach 
Bullock's  Creek  meeting-house,  in  what  is  now  York  County, 
on  Saturday,  the  13th.  He  did  not,  however,  move  from 
McAllister's  until  Saturday.  He  was  waiting  for  Leslie, 
who  was  still  in  the  swamps.  On  Sunday,  the  14th,  he  was 
at  Bull  Run,  about  two  miles  southeast  of  the  present  town 
of  Chester.  From  this  place  he  informed  Tarleton  that 
Leslie  was  at  last  out  of  the  swamps. 

Tarleton,  on  receiving  the  reenforcements  of  the  Seventh 
and  Seventeenth  regiments,  moved  westwardly  and  crossed 
Indian  Creek  in  the  present  Newberry  County,  and  after- 
wards Dunkin's  Creek  in  the  present  Laurens  County, 
seeking  practicable  fords  for  the  passage  of  the  Enoree  and 
Tyger  rivers.  These  rivers  were  passed,  on  the  14th, 
above  the  Cherokee  Road,  and  in  the  eveninc^  Tarleton  ob- 


IN   THE   llEVOLUTION  29 

tainecl  information  that  Morgan  guarded  all  the  fords  upon 
the  Pacolet,  that  Cornwallis  had  reached  Bull  Run,  and  that 
Leslie  had  surmounted  the  difficulties  which  had  retarded 
his  march.  Tarleton  thereupon  informed  Cornwallis  that  he 
would  endeavor  to  pass  the  Pacolet,  and  thus  force  Morgan 
to  retreat  up  the  Broad.  He  urged  his  lordship  to  proceed 
up  the  eastern  bank  of  that  river  without  delay,  as  such  a 
movement,  in  cooperation  with  his,  would  undoubtedly 
stop  the  retreat  of  the  Americans,  cut  off,  as  they  would 
be,  from  the  main  army  under  Greene.  Cornwallis,  how- 
ever, still  Avaited  upon  Leslie's  movements,  and  detained 
him  at  Camden  after  he  had  passed  the  swamps  until  the 
16th  in  order  to  mislead  Greene  as  to  his  own  movements.^ 
Nor  had  he  himself  advanced  at  the  time  farther  than 
Turkey  Creek,  in  what  is  now  York  County,  25  miles  to 
the  southeast  of  Morgan's  position,  instead  of  having  ad- 
vanced as  many  miles  to  the  north  on  the  route  which  the 
latter  must  have  proceeded  to  join  Greene  or  to  seek 
shelter  in  North  Carolina.  It  was  not  until  the  18th  that 
Leslie,  by  his  orders,  crossed  the  Catawba,  and  joined  him 
in  what  was  spoken  of  as  the  middle  road,  i.e.  the  route 
between  the  Catawba  and  the  Broad.  From  the  14th  to 
the  17th  Tarleton  was  left  without  information  as  to  his 
lordship's  movements ;  but  having  ascertained  the  position 
of  Morgan's  outposts,  and  supposing  that  the  main  army 
was  now  in  Morgan's  rear,  he  commenced  his  march  on 
the  evening  of  the  15th,  directing  his  course  to  the  old 
iron  works  which  were  situated  higher  up  the  river,  indi- 
cating an  intention  of  crossing  it  above  Morgan's  position, 
and  thus  to  place  his  adversary  between  himself  and  the 
main  army.  Morgan,  deceived  by  this  stratagem,  made  a 
corresponding  movement  up  the  river,  upon  which  Tarleton, 
silently  decamping  in  the  night,  secured  a  passage  below, 
^  Cornwallis  to  Lord  George  Germain,  Tarleton's  Campaigns^  (note)  260. 


30  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

within  six  miles  of  Morgan's  camp,  and  made  good  his 
crossing  before  daylight.  Upon  this  Morgan  fell  back, 
precipitately,  towards  Thicketty  Creek.^  Tarleton  then 
advanced  to  some  log  houses,  formerly  constructed  by 
Major  Ferguson,  which  lay  midway  between  the  British 
and  Americans.  Here  he  intended  to  take  post  with  his 
whole  corps  behind  the  cabins,  and  await  Morgan's  move- 
ments, but  a  patrol  discovering  that  the  Americans  were 
gone,  Tarleton  occupied  their  abandoned  position,  in  which 
he  found  a  quantity  of  provisions  and  half-cooked  rations, 
so  suddenly  had  Morgan  been  compelled  to  move.  Here 
he  remained  during  the  16th,  and,  supposing  that  his  ad- 
versary was  resolved  to  fly  early  on  the  morning  of  the 
17th,  started  in  pursuit. 

The  forces,  British  and  American,  about  to  be  engaged, 
were  as  follows :  On  the  British  side  Tarleton  had  his  own 
Legion,  which  he  puts  at  550  men,  the  Seventh  Regiment, 
200,  and  a  detachment  of  the  Seventeenth  Dragoons,  50. 
To  these  were  added  the  First  Battalion  of  the  Seventy- 
first  Regiment,  200,  and  a  detachment  of  the  Royal  Artil- 
lery to  man  the  field-guns,  about  50.  So  that  Tarleton's 
force,  by  his  estimate,  was  about  1000.  The  Americans 
contended  that  it  amounted  to  1150,  and  there  certainly 
was  a  party  of  Loyalists  with  him,  not  included  in  his 
estimate,  for  he  mentions  the  capture  by  such  a  party  of  a 
militia  colonel  from  whom  he  obtained  information  in 
regard  to  Morgan's  movements. ^  These  are  also  said  to 
have  been  about  50,^  which  may  have  brought  his  force  up 
to  the  American  estimate. 

Johnson,  in  his  Life  of  Greene,'^  asserts  that  Morgan's 

1  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  221  ;  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  320  ; 
Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  226. 

2  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  210,  211,  214. 

8  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  374.  *  Ibid.,  346. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  31 

whole  force  on  duty  consisted  of  290  regular  infantry,  80 
cavalry,  and  600  militia,  in  all,  970.  General  Greene,  in  his 
letter  appointing  Morgan  to  this  command,  informed  him 
that  it  was  to  consist  of  the  Mar34and  line  of  320,  a  detach- 
ment of  the  Virginia  militia  of  200,  Washington's  cavalry 
of  from  60  to  100,  and  that  he  would  be  joined  by  a  body 
of  volunteer  militia  under  General  Davidson  of  North  Car- 
olina, and  those  of  South  Carolina,  lately  under  the  com- 
mand of  General  Sumter.^  From  a  disagreement  between 
Sumter  and  Morgan  the  former's  troops  do  not  appear  to 
have  formed  a  part  of  the  latter's  command.  In  a  letter 
of  Morgan  to  Greene,  written  on  the  15th  of  January,  two 
days  before  the  battle,  he  puts  the  militia  from  South  Car- 
olina and  Georgia  at  200,  and  those  from  North  Carolina 
at  140.2  So  that  his  whole  force  was  940.  In  a  recent 
work  3  this  statement  is  made  as  to  the  respective  quota  of 
militia  from  the  States  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia.  Accepting  Morgan's  statement  as  to  the  strength 
of  the  Continental  troops  and  Virginia  militia  composing 
his  corps,  the  author  goes  on  to  say — "  To  this  were  added 
McDowell's  mounted  North  Carolina  volunteers,  190  men, 
Davidson's  Mecklenburg  volunteers,  a  part  of  whom,  how- 
ever, were  from  Tryon,  —  in  all  310  North  Carolinians. 
Pickens's  South  Carolinians,  70  men,  and  the  Georgians 
under  McCall  about  30  men."  To  this  it  may  be  ob- 
jected that  Morgan's  report  to  his  commanding  officer, 
immediately  preceding  the  battle,  is  at  least  more  likely  to 
be  correct  as  to  the  strength  and  composition  of  his  force 
than  estimates  made  long  after ;  and  in  his  report  Morgan 
gives  140  as  the  exact  strength  of  the  North  Carolina  mili- 
tia, and  estimates  the  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  contri- 
bution at  200.     The  author  of   the  work  quoted,  while 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  346.  2  755,-^, 

8  No.  Ca.,  1780-81  (Schenck),  205. 


32  HISTORY    OF    SOUTH   CAllOLINA 

severe  upon  Judge  Johnson  for  alleged  intemperate  zeal  on 
behalf  of  his  State,  South  Carolina,  has  himself  fallen  into 
palpable  errors  in  attempting  to  show  mistakes  by  the 
author  of  the  Life  of  Q-reene.  He  states  that  Pickens's 
command  proper  was  only  70  men,  and  McCall's  G-eorgians 
were  only  30  in  number.^  He  evidently  supposes  McCall 
himself  to  have  been  a  Georgian.  As  has  appeared,  he  was 
a  South  Carolinian  from  Ninety  Six,  having  been  in  the 
service  during  the  siege  of  Ninety  Six  in  1775,  with  a  com- 
pany from  that  district.^  Fortunately  for  the  fame  of  South 
Carolina,  the  historian  of  Georgia  has  given  the  account  of 
the  organization  of  Pickens's  party.  When  this  officer 
took  the  field  he  assumed  command  of  an  encampment  of 
his  followers  at  Long  Cane,  in  Ninety  Six  District,  and 
marched  to  join  Morgan.  The  historian  of  Georgia  goes 
on  to  say :  "  Lieutenant-Colonel  McCall  was  ordered  to 
make  a  selection  of  forty-five  men,  who,  equipped  as  dra- 
goons, in  which  there  were  several  Georgians^  to  act  witli 
Colonel  Washington's  regiment.  Major  John  Cimningham 
commanded  the  Greorgia  troops  under  the  orders  of  Greneral 
Morgan.^''  McCall's  mounted  corps  were,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few.  South  Carolinians.^ 

There  was  a  marked  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
opposing  forces  at  Cowpens  from  those  who  fought  at 
King's  Mountain.  At  King's  Mountain  there  were  no 
British  regulars  of  the  line  on  the  one  side  nor  Continen- 
tal regulars  on  the  other.     It  was  a  battle  between  Amer- 

1  No.  Ca.,  1780-81  (Sclienck),  201. 

2  James  McCall,  captain  Ninety  Six,  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  lievolu- 
tion  (McCrady),  9  ;  commands  expedition  to  capture  Indian  agent  (ibid., 
189, 190);  joins  Sumter  on  the  Catawba  (ibid.,Q'dS);  joins  Clarke  in  effort 
to  recover  Georgia  (ibid.,  733);  with  Clarke  lays  siege  to  Augusta  (ibid., 
734);  takes  part  under  Sumter  in  battle  of  Fishdam  (ibid.,  821);  in  battle 
at  Blackstock  (ibid.,  820);  with  Clarke  moves  against  Ninety  Six;  takes 
part  in  battle  of  Long  Cane  and  is  wounded  (ibid.,  831-850). 

3  Hist.  o/Ga.  (McCall),  vol.  II,  351,  355. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  33 

ican  Tories,  from  North  and  South,  and  American  Whigs, 
from  the  Carolinas  and  Virginia.  Ferguson  appears  to 
liave  been  the  only  British  officer  present.  The  British 
forces  at  Cowpens  were  nearly  all  regulars.  The  three 
regiments,  Seventh,  Seventeenth,  and  Seventy-first,  and  the 
Royal  Artillery  w^ere  all  from  the  British  line  ;  and  Tarle- 
ton's  Legion,  though  raised  at  New  York,  were  practically 
regulars.  On  the  American  side  there  were  present  the 
Maryland  line  and  Washington's  Dragoons  of  the  Continen- 
tal Army.  In  the  quality  of  troops,  it  has  been  supposed, 
says  Johnson,  that  the  British  had  infinitely  the  advan- 
tage, but  this  was  scarcely  so.  At  least  800  or  400  of  the 
enemy  are  said  to  have  been  new  recruits  and  probably  not 
yet  disciplined  or  ever  before  in  battle,  and  it  appears  that 
Tarleton's  own  corps,  the  famous  British  Legion,  had  been 
recruited  from  the  prisoners  taken  at  the  battle  of  Camden, 
and  it  is  said,  seeing  their  own  regiment  opposed  to  them, 
would  not  proceed  against  them,  but  broke.  On  the  other 
hand,  besides  the  Continentals  he  commanded,  such  a  body 
of  militia  as  served  under  Morgan  has  seldom  been  collected 
in  the  field  of  battle.  Two  companies  of  them,  under  Cap- 
tains Triplett  and  Taite,  were  from  Virginia,  and  were 
mostly  veteran  soldiers  who  had  served  out  their  enlist- 
ment and  were  now  hired  as  substitutes  by  the  drafted 
militia.  The  Georgians  consisted  of  Clarke's  veterans,  vol- 
unteers, 100  in  number,  who  had  been  almost  the  whole 
war  in  constant  service,  and  a  more  dauntless  little  corps 
it  would  have  been  difficult  to  find.  Their  gallant  Colonel 
did  not  share  in  the  honors  of  the  field,  for  he  had  recently 
been  disabled  by  a  severe  wound ;  but  they  were  led  by 
two  gallant  officers,  Cunningham  and  Jackson.^     The  140 

1  In  a  letter  written  by  Major  Jackson  to  General  Morgan,  dated  Jan- 
uary 20,  1795,  from  the  U.  S.  Senate  chamber,  he  says  :  "  The  officers 
commanding  .  .  .  were  Major  Cunningham  and  Captain  Samuel  Hammond, 

VOL.   IV.  —  D 


34  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

North  Carolina  Riflemen  under  Major  McDowell  had  fought 
at  Musgrove's  Mills,  King's  Mountain,  and  in  almost  every 
action  during  the  preceding  summer,  and  had  therefore 
seen  service  and  were  reliable. ^  The  rest  of  the  militia 
were  new  men  from  Ninety  Six  District,  South  Carolina, 
under  Pickens  —  45  of  them  mounted  under  Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel McCall,  and  the  remainder  riflemen.  These 
as  yet  had  probably  seen  no  service,  but  like  their  com- 
mander. Colonel  Pickens,  they  had  entered  the  field  fully 
aware  that  for  themselves  there  was  no  quarter  to  be 
asked,  and  realized  that  death  upon  the  field  was  prefer- 
able to  the  ignominious  end  which  would  be  theirs  if  taken. 
They  were  practised  marksmen,  and  with  the  desperation 
of  their  situation,  voluntarily  assumed,  were  most  formi- 
dable foes.  Morgan's  force  was  also  most  admirably  offi- 
cered. The  Regulars  or  Continentals  were  commanded  by 
two  distinguished  officers ;  the  North  Carolina  militia  by 
Major  McDowell,  who  had  seen  much  service ;  and  Pickens, 
who  commanded  the  South  Carolinas,  had  already  com- 
manded with  great  success  in  the  field  and  had  now  even 
gained  the  esteem  of  Morgan.^  No  eulogium,  says  Johnson, 
is  necessary  to  the  reputation  of  Pickens ;  but  McCall  is 
less  known  and  has  been  too  soon  forgotten.  He  was 
amongst  the  most  distinguished  partisan  leaders  of  his 
time ;  unfortunately  he  did  not  live  to  see  the  issue  of  the 
contest  in  which  he  had  taken  part.  Excelled  by  no  one 
for  activity,  resolution,  and  intelligence,  he  fell  a  sacrifice 
to  small-pox  contracted  in  the  field.^ 

When  Tarleton  turned  his  position  on  the  Pacolet,  Mor- 

George  Walton,  and  Joshua  Inraan.  ,  .  .  The  detachment  was  under 
my  immediate  command  and  direction,  although  I  acted  also  as  brigade- 
major  to  all  the  militia  Y>Teseut:' —  Atlanta  Constitution,  January  5,  1902. 

1  No.  Ca.,  1780-Sl  (Schenck),  201. 

2  Letter  to  Greene,  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  371.      » Ibid.,  373. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  35 

gan  fell  back  to  the  Cowpens,  near  Thicketty  Mountain,  in 
what  is  now  Spartanburg  County,  the  scene  of  the  mem- 
orable bivouac  of  the  gathered  clans  on  the  evening  of  the 
6th  of  October,  1780,  and  from  which  they  marched  to  the 
victory  of  King's  Mountain.^  Here  Morgan  was  forced  to 
deliver  battle.  His  choice  of  ground  has  been  severely 
censured.  The  ground  about  the  Cowpens  was  an  open 
wood,  admitting  the  operations  of  cavalry  with  facility, 
in  which  arm  of  the  service  the  enemy  trebled  his  own. 
His  flanks  had  no  resting-places,  but  were  exposed  to  be 
readily  turned,  and  Broad  River  ran  parallel  to  his  rear, 
forbidding  the  hope  of  a  safe  retreat  in  the  event  of  dis- 
aster. "  Had  Morgan  crossed  the  river,"  says  Lee  in  his 
Memoirs^  "  and  approached  the  mountain  (i.  e..  King's 
Mountain),  he  would  have  gained  a  position  disadvanta- 
geous to  cavalry  but  convenient  for  riflemen,  and  would 
have  secured  a  less  dangerous  retreat.  But  these  cogent  rea- 
sons, rendered  more  favorable  by  his  inferiority  in  numbers, 
could  not  prevail.  Confiding  in  his  long-tried  fortune, 
conscious  of  his  personal  superiority  in  soldiership,  and 
relying  on  the  skill  and  courage  of  his  troops,  he  adhered 
to  his  resolution.  Erroneous  as  was  the  decision  to 
fight  in  this  position,"  says  the  author,  "  the  disposition  for 
battle  was  masterly."  ^  To  this  criticism  Morgan  himself 
has  replied,  as  follows :  — 

"  I  would  not  have  had  a  swamp  in  the  view  of  my  militia  on  any 
consideration';  they  would  have  made  for  it  and  nothing  could  have 
detained  them  from  it.  And  as  to  covering  my  wings,  I  knew  my 
adversary,  and  was  perfectly  sure  I  should  have  nothing  but  down- 
right fighting.  As  to  retreat,  it  was  the  very  thing  I  wished  to  cut 
off  all  hope  of.  I  would  have  thanked  Tarleton  had  he  surrounded 
me  with  his  cavalry.  It  would  have  been  better  than  placing  my 
own  men  in  the  rear  to  shoot  down  those  who  broke  from  the  ranks. 

1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  774,  775. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  226. 


3G  HISTORY   OP   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

When  men  are  forced  to  fight  they  will  sell  themselves  dearly ;  and  I 
knew  tliat  th(3  dread  of  Tarleton's  cavalry  would  give  due  weight  to 
the  protection  of  my  bayonets,  and  keep  my  troops  from  breaking  as 
Buford's  Regiment  did.  Had  I  crossed  the  river,  one-half  of  the  mili- 
tia would  immediately  have  abandoned  me."  i 

The  victory  of  Saratoga  must  surely  have  turned  the 
heads  of  those  who  achieved  it.  This  attempted  justifica- 
tion by  Morgan  —  one  of  its  heroes  —  for  the  violation  of 
every  military  rule,  if  indeed  he  voluntarily  chose  the 
ground,  is  as  rash  and  silly  as  it  is  bombastic,  and  is  much 
in  the  style  of  his  commander  Gates  when  in  the  height  of 
his  folly  upon  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne.  He  would  not, 
he  declared,  have  had  a  swamp  in  the  view  of  his  militia 
on  any  consideration,  because  they  would  have  made  for 
it,  and  nothing  could  have  detained  them  from  it!  And 
yet  it  was  from  the  swamps  of  the  Wateree  that  Sumter 
had  fallen  upon  Carey's  Fort  at  Camden  Ferry,  and  carried 
off  as  prisoners  the  whole  garrison  and  convoy  of  the  pro- 
vision train.  It  was  in  the  swamps  of  the  Santee  that 
Marion's  men  had  rescued  the  Continental  prisoners  lost  at 
Camden  by  Gates.  It  was  through  the  swamps  of  Thick- 
etty  Creek  itself  that  Campbell's  Virginia  militia  had 
marched  to  victory  at  King's  Mountain.  And  it  was  in 
the  swamps  of  the  Pee  Dee  that  Marion  was  even  then 
keeping  alive  the  spirit  of  resistance  in  the  Low-Country 
—  swamps  which  Marion  was  to  render  famous  in  history 
by  the  deeds  of  volunteer  militia.  He  would  not  cover  his 
wings  because  he  knew  his  adversary  and  was  sure  he 
would  have  nothing  but  downright  fighting  !  Did  ever  a 
military  leader  announce  a  more  foolish  proposition  ?  He 
had  no  confidence  in  his  militia,  which  constituted  nearly 
two-thirds  of  his  whole  command,  and  would  have  thanked 
Tarleton  for  surrounding  them  and  saving  him  from  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  T,  375,  870. 


IN   THE    REVOLUTION  37 

necessity  of  placing  men  in  his  rear  to  shoot  down  those 
who  broke  from  their  lines.  And  yet,  situated  as  he  was, 
with  the  best  troops  in  the  British  service  in  his  front, 
especially  strong  in  cavalry,  led  by  a  desperate  fighter, 
Morgan  would  have  us  believe  that  he  deliberately  selected 
as  his  battle-ground  an  open  field,  and  of  purpose  formed 
his  line  of  battle  with  his  "  wings  in  the  air  "  !  This  he 
did,  he  asserts,  because  he  knew  that  the  dread  of  Tarle- 
ton's  cavalry  would  give  due  weight  to  the  protection  of 
his  bayonets,  and  keep  his  troops  from  breaking  as  Buford's 
regiment  had  done.  Mark !  As  Buford's  regiment  had 
done  I  He  seems  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  Buford's  regiment 
were  Continental  regulars  and  not  militia,  and  entirely  ob- 
livious of  the  glorious  deeds  which  had  been  accomplished 
by  the  partisan  bands  in  South  Carolina  since  that  event. 
His  bayonets  could  not  have  exceeded  300.  Tlie  Maryland 
line,  the  only  regular  infantry  he  had,  amounted  to  but  290, 
and  the  militia  were  armed  onl}^  with  rifles  and  shotguns. 
Tarleton's  cavalry  alone  numbered  350,  and  to  oppose  the 
Marjdand  line  was  the  famous  Seventy-first  Regiment, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  Seventh,  which  it  is  supposed  was 
somewhat  inferior  because  of  its  newly  recruited  ranks. 
What  bayonets  had  he,  then,  with  which  to  protect  his 
militia  ?  Forsooth,  his  bayonets  had  all  they  could  do  that 
day  to  protect  themselves.  Through  the  whole  of  this,  his 
justification,  runs  the  vein  of  criticism  and  distrust  of  the 
volunteer  soldiery  so  common  to  the  writings  of  all  the  Con- 
tinental officers  of  the  time.  Men  who  had  voluntarily  aban- 
doned their  families  and  homes  to  enter  the  struggle  for 
liberty  without  pay,  a  service  in  which,  to  many  of  them, 
there  was  no  quarter  to  be  expected,  most  of  whom  had  had 
also  as  much,  and  in  some  instances,  even  more  experience  in 
actual  warfare  than  those  who  so  derided  them,  were  con- 
temptuously termed  "  militia,"  and  their  conduct  esteemed 


38  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

less  trustworthy  than  that  of  enlisted  men  who  were 
fighting  only  for  pay.  Clarke's  and  McCall's  volunteers, 
who  had  been  victors  at  Musgrove's  Mills  and  had  fought 
so  desperately  at  Augusta  and  Long  Cane,  and  McDow- 
ell's rillemen,  who  had  borne  their  part  at  King's  Moun- 
tain and  in  many  other  fields,  were  not  considered  worthy 
to  be  associated  with  the  Continentals  wlio  had  been  de- 
feated at  Camden,  and  had  since  lain  idly  by  while  the 
partisan  bands  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
had  victoriously  fought  twenty-six  battles  and  put  hors  de 
combat  of  the  enemy  more  than  three  times  their  own  loss. 

If  Morgan,  for  the  reasons  assigned  by  him  in  this  letter, 
deliberately  chose  the  field  of  the  Cowpens  as  his  battle- 
ground, he  was  unfit  for  the  command  with  which  he  was 
intrusted,  notwithstanding  all  his  previous  services ;  nor 
could  the  brilliant  victory  achieved  by  his  troops  on  the 
ill-chosen  field  relieve  his  memory,  in  this  instance,  of  the 
most  wanton  and  reckless  conduct.  This  justification  in 
the  choice  of  his  position  was,  however,  an  afterthought. 
The  history  of  the  battle  does  not  comport  with  its  theory 
—  a  theory  worked  out  to  meet  adverse  criticism  long  after 
the  battle  had  taken  place. 

That  no  such  idea  was  entertained  by  Morgan  at  the 
time  is  clear  from  his  communications  both  before  and 
after  the  battle.  Writing  to  General  Greene  on  the  15th  of 
January,  two  days  before  the  battle, —  the  day  before  Tarle- 
ton  manoeuvred  him  out  of  his  position  on  the  Pacolet, — 
requesting  that  he  should  be  recalled  with  his  detachment, 
he  proposed  that  General  Davidson  and  Colonel  Pickens 
might  be  left  with  the  militia,  as  they  would  not  be  so 
much  the  object  of  the  enemy's  attention,  but  would  be 
capable  of  being  a  check  on  the  disaffected,  which  is  all  he 
himself  could  effect.  He  adds,  Colonel  Pickens  is  a  valu- 
able, discreet,  and  attentive  officer,  and  has  the  confidence 


IN   THE   EEVOLUTION  89 

of  the  militia.  Objecting  to  Greene's  proposal  of  attack 
upon  Cornwallis  in  his  camp,  he  says  he  has  only  200 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  and  140  North  Carolina  volun- 
teers. "  Nor  do  I  expect  to  have,"  he  adds,  "  more  than 
two-thirds  of  these  should  I  be  attacked,  for  it  is  impossible 
to  keep  them  collected."  ^  He  objected  to  the  straggling 
of  the  militia  or  volunteers,  but  so  far  from  doubting  their 
courage  and  conduct,  he  proposes  to  leave  them  to  over- 
come the  disaffected,  while  he  joins  Greene  with  his  Con- 
tinentals. In  his  report  of  the  battle,  written  on  the  19th, 
two  days  after  its  occurrence,  there  is  no  suggestion  of 
such  an  idea.  The  report  is  disingenuous,  for  it  makes  no 
allusion  to  the  fact  that  he  was  forced  to  abandon  the  line 
of  the  Pacolet  by  Tarleton's  stratagem,  but  accounts  for 
his  movements  giving  "  the  appearance  of  a  retreat,"  as  of 
his  own  choice,  seeking  a  more  advantageous  position  ; 
but  so  far  from  implying  any  doubt  of  the  efficiency  of  the 
volunteers,  as  he  calls  them,  he  details  how  he  placed  them, 
under  Colonel  Pickens,  to  guard  his  flanks.  He  reports, 
"  The  volunteers  from  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and 
Georgia,  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Pickens,  were 
posted  to  guard  the  flanks."  ^  And  yet,  in  his  old  age,  he 
would  persuade  us  that  he  had  to  place  "his  own  men  in 
the  rear  to  shoot  down  those  (whom  he  had  thus  posted  to 
guard  his  flanks)  if  they  broke."  Was  ever  anything  more 
preposterous ! 

The  truth  is  that  Morgan  had  no  business  on  the  west 
side  of  Broad  River  for  any  other  purpose  than  for  one  of 
those  raids  by  which  the  partisan  bands  in  this  section  had 
^broken  up  the  British  outposts  during  the  last  six  months, 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  371. 

2  Original  report  of  General  Morgan.  Collection  of  Mr.  T.  Bailey 
"Myers  of  New  York,  published  in  News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  South 

Carolina,  May  10,  1881. 


40  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAllOLINA 

in  the  absence  of  any  regular  army  in  the  field.  He  had 
been  sent  by  Greene  to  threaten  Ninety  Six,  and  to  coun- 
tenance and  aid  the  uprising  of  the  people  there.  He  had 
accomplished  the  dispersion  of  Cuningham's  party  at 
Williams's  plantation,  and  had  come  back  recnforced  by 
Pickens  and  McCall.  But  when  Tarleton  was  interposed 
between  himself  and  Ninety  Six,  and  it  was  known  through 
Marion  that  Leslie  was  approaching  a  junction  with  Corn 
wallis,  he  should  no  longer  have  allowed  two  large  rivers 
—  the  Broad  and  the  Catawba  —  to  remain  between 
Greene's  army  and  his  detachment.  Greene  had  written 
to  him  on  the  9th :  "  It  is  not  my  wish  you  should  come 
to  action  unless  you  have  a  manifest  advantage  and  a 
moral  certainty  of  succeeding.  Put  nothing  to  the 
hazard.  A  retreat  may  be  disagreeable,  but  it  is  not  dis- 
graceful. Regard  not  the  opinion  of  the  day.  It  is  not  our 
business  to  risk  too  much ;  our  affairs  are  in  too  critical  a 
situation,  and  require  time  and  nursing  to  give  them  a 
better  tone."  His  position  on  the  Pacolet  was  precarious 
in  the  extreme.  He  was  practically  between  Tarleton 
and  Cornwallis,  beyond  any  possibility  of  succor  from 
Greene  at  Cheraw.  The  line  of  the  Pacolet  itself  was 
a  weak  one.  The  stream  was  shallow  and  abounding 
with  fords.  But  there  he  remained  while  Tarleton  was 
strongly  reenforced  by  Cornwallis.  From  this  position  bj 
his  first  move  his  opponent  outmanoeuvred  him.  Moving 
as  if  to  cross  above,  Tarleton  induced  him  to  uncover  f| 
better  crossing  below,  and  then  by  a  sudden  and  concealec 
countermarch  in  the  night  threw  his  force  across  the  Pa 
colet  so  promptly  and  quietly  as  to  compel  Morgan,  pre 
cipitately,  to  abandon  his  camp,  leaving  his  half-cookec 
rations  on  the  ground.  Morgan  had  now  no  alternativ(t 
but  to  fight  or  fly  to  the  mountains.  Lee  supposes  tha 
Morgan's  decision  to  fight  where  he  did  grew  out  of  irrita 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  41 

tion  of  temper,  which  overruled  the  suggestions  of  his 
better  judgment ;  ^  but  it  rather  appears  that  Taiieton  had 
deprived  him  of  any  other  alternative.  Early  in  the  night 
of  the  16th  Tarleton's  scouts  reported  that  Morgan  had 
struck  into  byways  tending  towards  Thicketty  Creek, 
whereupon  Tarleton  immediately  prepared  for  pursuit,  and 
began  his  march  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
17th.  Before  dawn  he  had  overtaken  Morgan,  who  had 
now  either  to  fight  or  to  retreat  with  the  enemy  hanging 
upon  his  rear  —  a  retreat  which  would  probably  have  ended 
in  rout.  But  even  could  he  have  reached  the  Broad,  his 
troops,  fatigued  and  dispirited,  could  scarcely  have  crossed 
in  the  face  of  Tarleton's  powerful  cavalry.  Well  did  Corn- 
wallis  write  to  Tarleton  after  the  battle,  "  The  means  you 
used  to  bring  the  enemy  to  action  were  able  and  masterly, 
and  must  ever  do  you  honor."  ^  Accustomed  to  fight  and 
to  conquer,  as  he  had  been,  Morgan  did  not  hesitate  to 
accept  the  issue  of  battle  thus  forced  upon  him ;  and  how- 
ever ill  suited  the  ground,  masterly  was  the  disposition  of 
his  forces  to  meet  it,  but  not  such  as  he  afterwards  so 
foolishly  stated  them  to  have  been.  Tarleton  had  pro- 
ceeded but  a  little  way  before  his  advance  guards  reported 
that  the  American  troops  had  halted  and  were  forming. 

Morgan,  thus  forced  to  action,  took  ground  on  an  emi- 
nence gently  ascending  for  about  350  yards  and  covered 
with  an  open  wood.  On  the  crown  of  this  eminence  were 
posted  what,  as  he  considered,  his  best  troops,  composed  of 
the  290  Maryland  regulars,  and  in  line  on  their  right  the 
two  companies  of  Virginia  militia  veterans,  under  Triplett 
and  Taite,  and  a  company  of  Georgians,  under  Captain 
Beale,  about  140  in  the  whole,  making  his  second  line  to 
consist  of  430  men.  This  was  commanded  by  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Howard.  One  hundred  and  fifty  yards  in  advance 
1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  220.        2  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  252. 


42  HISTORY   OF    SOUTH    CAROLINA  I 

of  this  line  the  main  body  of  the  militia,  about  270  in  number, 
were  posted  in  open  order.  These,  all  volunteers  and 
practised  marksmen,  most  of  them  burning  under  a  sense 
of  personal  injury,  were  commanded  by  Colonel  Pickens. 
In  advance  of  this  line,  about  150  yards,  were  posted  150 
picked  men,  deployed  along  the  whole  front,  on  the  right 
commanded  by  Major  Cunningham  of  Georgia,  and  on  the 
left  by  Major  McDowell  of  North  Carolina.  The  descent 
in  the  ground  behind  the  second  line  was  sufficiently  deep 
to  cover  a  man  on  horseback.  Behind  this  the  Ameri- 
can reserve  was  posted,  consisting  of  Washington's  and 
McCall's  cavalry,  the  former  80,  and  the  latter  45  in 
number.  The  skirmish  line  of  militia,  under  Cunningham 
and  McDowell,  were  permitted  to  consult  their  security  as 
far  as  circumstances  would  permit  by  covering  their  bodies 
with  trees  and  firing  from  rest.  Their  orders  were  to 
reserve  their  fire  until  the  enemy  were  within  50  yards. 
Then,  having  delivered  it,  to  retire,  covering  themselves 
with  trees  as  occasion  offered,  until  they  reached  and  re- 
sumed their  places  in  the  first  line.  The  orders  to  the  first 
line  were  to  deliver  two  deliberate  discharges  at  the  distance 
of  50  yards,  and  then  to  retire  and  take  their  posts  on 
the  left  of  the  regulars  ;  if  charged  by  cavalry,  every  third 
man  to  fire,  and  two  to  remain  in  reserve  lest  the  cavalry 
should  continue  to  advance  after  the  first  fire.  The  second 
line  were  cautioned  not  to  be  alarmed  at  the  retreat  of  the 
militia  in  their  front.  The  orders  given  to  the  militia 
were  detailed  to  the  regulars.  They  were  directed  also  to 
fire  low  and  deliberately  ;  not  to  break  on  any  account,  and 
if  forced  to  retire,  to  rally  on  the  eminence  in  their  rear, 
where  they  were  assured  that  the  enemy  could  not  injure 
them.  The  baggage  of  the  American  army  had  been  sent 
off  early  in  the  morning  under  a  suitable  escort,  with  orders 
to  halt  a  few  miles  in  the  rear,  and  the  militia  horses — for 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  43 

the  volunteers  were  all  mounted  —  were  secured  to  the 
boughs  of  trees  a  convenient  distance  in  the  rear  of  the 
reserve.  Every  arrangement  having  been  thus  completed, 
the  men  were  ordered  to  rest  in  their  places. ^  All  were  in 
high  spirits  and  ready  for  the  action,  for,  however  Morgan 
disparaged  the  militia  in  his  correspondence,  he  had  fol- 
lowed the  custom  of  the  warfare  in  this  region  and  had 
submitted  to  them,  with  the  other  troops,  the  question 
whether  they  should  fight.  They  had  replied  with  a  uni- 
versal cry  to  be  led  to  battle.^ 

It  was  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  that  the  British 
army  arrived  in  view  of  the  Americans,  and,  instead  of 
overtaking  his  adversary  in  the  hurry,  confusion,  and 
fatigue  of  a  flight,  Tarleton  found  him  rested,  breakfasted, 
and  deliberately  drawn  up,  every  man  at  his  post,  and 
their  commander,  in  a  forcible  style  of  elocution,  addressing 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  British  troops  had  been  five 
hours  that  morning  on  the  march ;  but  Tarleton  judged  the 
excitement  of  the  moment  of  greater  consequence  than  rest 
or  refreshment,  and  prepared  immediately  for  action.  The 
American  army  calmly  looked  on  while  the  enemy  formed 
his  order  of  battle  at  the  distance  of  four  hundred  yards 
from  the  first  line.^ 

Tarleton  had  approached  with  his  army  in  the  following 
order :  the  Light  Infantry  and  Legion  Infantry  and  the 
Seventh  Regiment,  with  the  artillery  in  the  centre,  and  a 
captain  and  50  dragoons  on  each  flank  composed  his 
advance.  The  battalion  of  the  Seventy-first  Regi- 
ment and  150  dragoons  composed  his  reserve.  As  they 
arrived  upon  the  ground,  the  infantry  were  required  to  dis- 
encumber themselves  of  everything  except  their  arms  and 

1  In  this  account  of  Morgan's  disposition  for  the  battle  Johnson  has 
been  followed,  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  I,  377-379. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  372.  » Ibid.,  372,  379. 


44  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ammunition.  The  Legion  Dragoons  were  ordered  to  drive 
in  the  skirmish  line  which  covered  Morgan's  front,  that  it 
might  be  more  conveniently  and  distinctly  inspected.  On 
the  advance  of  the  cavalry  the  American  parties  retreated 
and  fell  back  into  the  first  line.  This  retreat  upon  their 
part,  it  is  said,  was  made  earlier  in  the  action  than  Morgan 
had  intended,  but  not  before  they  had  inflicted  a  blow  upon 
the  enemy  from  which  they  did  not  recover  and  which 
proved  ultimately  fatal  to  their  fortunes  ^  —  Cunningham's 
and  McDowell's  marksmen  had,  before  falling  back, given  the 
British  cavalry  a  few  discharges  which  made  them  tremble, 
for  at  least  that  day,  at  the  deadly  aim  of  the  American 
riflemen. 

The  American  skirmishers  having  fallen  back,  the  British 
Light  Infantry  were  filed  to  the  right  till  they  covered  the 
flank  of  the  American  front  line  ;  and  the  Legion  Infantry 
formed  upon  their  left.  Before  the  other  troops  had  been 
placed  in  position  Tarleton  ordered  an  advance  of  the  partly 
formed  line  under  fire  of  a  three-pounder  to  within  300 
yards  of  the  American  line.  Here  the  Seventh  Regiment 
was  formed  upon  the  left  of  the  Legion  Infantry,  and  the 
other  three-pounder  was  given  to  the  right  division  of  the 
Seventh.  The  two  field-pieces  were  placed  equidistant  from 
each  other  and  from  the  extremity  of  each  wing,  thus  divid- 
ing the  line  into  thirds.  A  party  of  dragoons  of  50  under 
a  captain  was  placed  on  each  flank  of  the  corps  which  formed 
the  British  front  line,  to  protect  their  own  and  threaten  the 
flanks  of  their  adversaries.  The  reserve,  composed  of  the 
Seventy -first  Regiment  and  200  cavalry,  was  posted  150 
yards  in  the  rear  and  to  the  left  of  the  line  of  battle. 

These  dispositions  having  been  made,  the  British  advanced 
under  the  fire  of  the  artillery  and  also  with  some  firing  of 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  228  ;  Jolmsou's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol.  I,  379. 


IN   THE   KE VOLUTION  45 

the  line  and  with  loud  shouts  for  approaching  victory.  The 
infantry  fire  Tarleton  declares  to  have  been  only  from  some 
of  the  recruits  of  the  Seventh  Regiment,  which  he  suppressed. 
The  militia  under  Pickens  maintained  their  line  with  perfect 
coolness.  They  received  the  enemy's  fire  with  a  firmness 
which  astonished  the  British,  unaccustomed  to  such  resist- 
ance from  the  description  of  the  troops  they  supposed  they 
had  in  front  of  them.^  At  the  distance  ordered  they  delivered 
their  fire  with  unerring  aim,  and  it  was,  says  Johnson,  the 
magnanimous  confession  of  a  gallant  officer  of  the  Maryland 
line  who  fought  on  this  day  "that  here  the  battle  was 
gained."  The  killed  and  wounded  of  the  British  commis- 
sioned and  non-commissioned  officers  who  lay  on  the  field 
of  battle  wliere  the  fire  of  the  riflemen  was  delivered,  and  the 
great  proportion  which  the  killed  and  wounded  of  this 
description  bore  to  the  whole  number  sufficiently  justified 
the  assertion.'-^  The  riflemen  had  carried  out  the  determina- 
tion which  they  had  formed  before  the  action  to  '^  mark  the 
epaulette  men."  ^  The  British  line  now  charged  with  their 
bayonets,  upon  which  Pickens  ordered  a  retreat  to  the  post 
assigned  them  before  the  action  began,  on  the  left  of  the 
Continental  troops.*  As  the  volunteers  fell  back  the  enemy 
rent  the  air  with  their  shouts,  and  quickened  their  advance  ; 
but  from  that  moment  the  work  of  Pickens's  marksmen  be- 
gan to  show  its  effects  ;  the  loss  of  officers  was  soon  manifest 
by  the  confusion  which  ensued  in  the  ranks. 

As  soon  as  the  second  line  was  cleared  the  latter  com- 
menced their  fire,  and  for  near  thirty  minutes  it  was  kept 
up  with  coolness  and  constancy.      The  fire  on  both  sides 

1  McCall's  Ilist.  ofOa.,  vol.  II,  357. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  880.  a  Ibid.,  378. 

*  General  Morgan  reports,  "  Majors  McDowell  and  Cunningham  gave 
them  a  heavy  and  galling  fire,  and  retreated  to  the  regiments  intended  for 
tlieir  support ;  the  whole  of  Colonel  Pickens's  command  then  kept  up  a  lire 
by  regiments,  retreating  agreeable  to  orders." 


46  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

was  well  supported  and  occasioned  much  slaughter.  The 
British,  though  frequently  halted  for  the  restoration  of  or- 
der, continued  to  advance,  but  with  such  hesitation  that 
Tarleton  ordered  up  the  Seventy-first  into  line  on  his  left, 
while  his  cavalry  made  a  sweep  upon  the  American  right. 

The  cavalry  of  Tarleton's  left  wing  had  fallen  upon  the 
rear  of  the  retreating  militia,  who,  having  to  traverse  the 
whole  front  of  the  second  line  to  reach  the  ground  on  which 
they  were  ordered  to  rally,  were  much  exposed  in  doing  so. 
Washington,  seeing  this,  dashed  to  their  assistance,  and, 
repulsing  the  enemy,  enabled  the  militia  to  recover  their 
composure  and  steadiness.  The  eminence  which  covered 
this  reserve  was  exceedingly  favorable  to  their  purpose,  and 
Pickens  ably  availed  himself  of  it.  Here  most  of  them 
gathered  around  him,  and  were  soon  reduced  to  order. 

Apprehensive  that  the  reserve  could  not  be  brought  up 
in  time  to  defend  this  exposed  flank,  or  if  it  were  that  it 
would  leave  his  other  flank  too  much  exposed,  Morgan  sent 
an  order  to  the  Virginia  and  Georgia  militia  on  his  right, 
to  fall  back  so  as  to  form  a  new  line  at  right  angles  with 
that  of  the  Continentals,  and  repel  the  enemy's  advance 
upon  his  right  flank.  To  effect  this  movement  with  preci- 
sion and  despatch,  the  commanding  officer  ordered  his  men 
to  face  to  the  right-about  and  wheel  on  their  left.  The 
first  part  of  the  order  was  executed  with  coolness.  And 
now  came  the  crisis  of  the  battle.  An  accident,  under  a 
misapprehension  of  orders,  which  for  a  while  threatened 
the  destruction  of  tlie  American  army,  was  averted,  strange 
to  say,  by  a  misapprehension  of  the  commander-in-chief  of 
what  had  actually  taken  place.  The  Continentals,  seeing 
the  movement  of  the  militia  on  their  right,  and  supposing 
that  this  was  the  state  of  things  which  required  a  retreat  to 
the  eminence  in  their  rear,  faced  about  also  and  began  to 
move  rather  in  an  accelerating  step,  but  still  in  perfect 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  47 

order,  towards  the  intended  second  position.  Howard,  pre- 
suming that  the  order  must  have  emanated  from  the  com- 
mander, made  no  opposition,  but  bent  his  whole  attention 
to  the  preservation  of  order  and  encouragement  of  his  men. 
Morgan,  also,  under  the  impression  that  the  movement  was 
made  under  the  order  of  Howard,  and  thinking  favorably 
of  it  under  existing  circumstances,  rode  along  the  rear  of 
the  line,  reminding  the  officers  to  halt  and  face  as  soon 
as  they  reached  their  ground.  But  just  at  this  crisis,  says 
Johnson,  whose  account  is  here  followed,  they  were  accosted 
by  another  officer,  and  their  attention  drawn  to  some  facts 
which  produced  an  immediate  change  of  measures.  This 
officer  was  a  messenger  from  Colonel  Washington,  who, 
having  been  carried,  in  pursuing  the  enemy's  cavalry,  some 
distance  in  the  advance  of  the  American  line,  found  the 
right  flank  of  the  enemy  wholly  exposed  to  him,  disclos- 
ing the  confusion  existing  in  their  ranks,  from  the  want  of 
the  officers  who  had  fallen  under  Pickens's  fire.  "  They 
are  coming  like  a  mob  —  give  them  a  fire  and  I  will  charge 
them,"  was  the  message  delivered,  and  the  messenger  gal- 
loped back  to  join  his  command.  At  that  instant  Pickens 
showed  himself  above  the  second  hill,  advancing  to  support 
the  right,  and  in  twenty  minutes  more  the  whole  British 
army  were  prisoners  of  the  Americans. 

The  British,  seeing  the  second  line  retreating,  as  they 
supposed,  advanced  rapidly  with  shouts  of  victory,  but  in 
the  disorder  which  Washington  had  described.  They  had 
reached  within  thirty  yards  of  Howard's  rear  when,  at  Wash- 
ington's suggestion,  that  officer  halted  his  troops.  "  Face 
about  and  give  them  one  fire,  and  the  victory  is  ours,"  was 
reiterated  by  Morgan  as  he  passed  along  the  line.  It  was 
promptly  obeyed.  The  enemy  were  within  a  few  yards 
tumultuously  shouting  and  rapidly  advancing  ;  scarcely  a 
man  of  the  Americans,  it  is  said,  raised  his  gun  to  his 


48  HISTOIIY    OF    SOUTH   CAROLINA 

shoulder;  when  their  fire  was  delivered  they  were  in  the 
attitude  of  using  their  bayonets.  The  bayonets  of  the  two 
armies  were  interlocked.  The  enemy  threw  down  their 
arms  and  fell  upon  their  faces.  The  cry  of  "  Tarleton's 
quarters  "  rang  from  right  to  left,  but  Howard  controlled 
his  men,  and  his  order  to  "give  them  quarter"  was 
obeyed.  Tarleton  as  a  last  effort  sent  orders  to  his 
dragoons  to  charge  the  right  of  the  Americans  while  he 
attempted  to  rally  the  infantry  to  protect  the  guns ;  but 
the  deadly  aim  of  Pickens's  riflemen  in  the  commencement 
of  the  action  had  so  completely  demoralized  men  who  had 
been  accustomed  only  to  sabring  defeated  troops  and  plun- 
dering the  unprotected,  that  he  could  get  no  response  to  his 
order.  His  efforts  to  collect  his  infantry  were  alike  in- 
effectual. Neither  promises  nor  threats,  he  declared,  could 
gain  their  attention.  They  surrendered  or  dispersed,  and 
abandoned  the  guns  to  the  artillerymen  who  defended 
them  for  some  time  with  exemplary  resolution.  In  this  last 
stage  of  defeat  Tarleton  made  another  struggle  to  bring 
his  cavalry  to  the  charge,  hoping  that  such  an  attack  might 
retrieve  the  day,  but  all  attempts  to  restore  order  or  reani- 
mate their  courage  proved  fruitless.  Tarleton  admits  that 
above  two  hundred  dragoons  forsook  their  leader  and  left 
the  field  of  battle.  They  had  been  accustomed  to  slaughter 
fugitives,  not  to  take  part  while  the  battle  waged.  They 
had  massacred  Buford's  regiment  at  the  Waxhaws,  had 
sabred  the  fugitives  from  Camden,  had  surprised  and  cut  to 
pieces  Sumter's  unarmed  men  at  Fishing  Creek ;  but  they 
failed  to  dislodge  this  same  leader's  recruited  ranks  wlien 
they  had  arms  in  their  hands  at  Blackstock,  and  when 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  foe  at  Cowpens  they  ignomini- 
ously  fled.  But  very  unlike  the  conduct  of  the  cavalry  was 
that  of  the  Royal  Artillerymen ;  abandoned  by  the  cavalry 
and  supported  only  by  a  few  of  the  infantry  who  rallied 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  49 

around  tliem,  these  devoted  men  stood  to  their  guns, 
though  Washington's  cavalry  was  amongst  them.  Most 
were  killed  or  wounded  by  the  time  that  Tarleton,  wdtli  a 
number  of  mounted  officers  and  all  that  remained  to  him 
of  his  cavalry,  about  fifty  in  number,  returned  to  support 
them.  Here  it  was  that  occurred  tliat  memorable  contest 
between  Tarleton  and  Washington  from  which  Wasli- 
ington  so  narrowly  escaped.  Seeing  Tarleton  approach, 
Washington  ordered  his  men  to  charge  and  dashed  forward 
himself.  Tarleton  ordered  a  retreat.  Being  in  the  rear  of 
his  retreating  men  and  looking  behind  him,  Tarleton  per- 
ceived that  Washington  was  very  near  him  and  fully  thirty 
yards  ahead  of  his  troops.  Observing  this,  w4th  tliree  offi- 
cers he  wheeled  about  and  advanced  to  meet  his  pursuer. 
One  of  his  officers,  the  one  on  the  right,  led,  and  parrying 
a  blow  aimed  at  him  by  Washington,  the  sword  of  the 
latter  proved  of  inferior  temper  and  broke  in  half.  Wash- 
ington, now  at  his  mercy,  was  about  to  fall  under  the  sword 
of  this  British  officer,  when  the  latter  was  disabled  by  an 
American  sergeant  who  had  come  to  the  assistance  of  his 
leader.  At  the  same  instant  a  serving-man,  too  small  to 
wield  a  sword,  but  who  had  joined  the  affray,  by  a  pistol 
shot  saved  Washington  from  the  sabre  of  the  British  officer 
who  had  come  up  on  the  left.  Then  Tarleton  himself,  in 
the  centre,  made  a  thrust  at  Washington,  which  was 
parried ;  when,  retreating  a  few  paces,  he  used  his  pistol, 
with  which  he  w^ounded  Washington's  horse. ^  In  the  mean- 
while all  was  over  with  the  British  army  on  the  extreme 
right  of  the  Americans.  The  Seventy-first  behaved,  as 
usual,  with  courage,  and  maintained  their  order  to  the  last. 
But  when  the  cavalry  fled  and  the  whole  weight  of  the 
American    army   pressed   on   them,   resistance   was   vain. 

1  Marshall's  Life  of   Washington,  vol.  IV,  347  ;  Johnson's  Life   oj 
Greene,  vol.  I,  383. 

VOL.  IV.  E 


50  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH    CAROLINA 

They  laid  down  their  arms,  and  Colonel  Pickens  in  person 
received  the  sword  of  their  commander,  Major  McArthur. 

Never  was  victory  more  complete.  Not  a  British  corps 
retired  from  the  field  under  command  except  the  few  cavalry 
who  accompanied  Tarleton.  Washington  pursued  the  fly- 
ing enemy  until  evening,  and  on  his  return  drove  before 
him  near  100  straggling  prisoners  collected  on  his  route. 
Two  field-pieces,  four-pounders,  800  muskets,  two  stands 
of  colors,  35  baggage  wagons,  and  100  dragoon  horses 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors.  Johnson,  upon  a 
review  of  the  authorities  and  from  original  matter, 
concludes  that  the  British  loss  was  600  prisoners  and 
184  killed  and  wounded,  of  whom  he  estimates  the 
slain  at  60.  The  loss  in  officers  was  particularly  great. 
At  least  one-tenth  of  the  killed  and  wounded  were 
commissioned  officers.  Ten  were  found  on  the  field  of 
battle,  almost  all  of  whom  had  evidently  fallen  under 
the  fire  of  the  militia.  Hence  the  irretrievable  confusion 
which  the  writers  on  both  sides  admit  to  have  ensued  in  the 
British  line.^  A  part  of  Tarleton's  cavalry  fled  to  Hamil- 
ton's Ford  on  Broad  River,  and  reached  Cornwallis's  camp 
at  Fisher's  Creek,  about  twenty-five  miles  from  Cowpens,  in 
the  evening.  The  remainder  arrived  with  Tarleton  the 
following  morning.2  The  whole  American  loss  was  but 
11  killed  and  61  wounded.  No  officer  of  rank  was  among 
the  killed  or  wounded.^ 

The  distinguishing  feature  of  the  battle  of  Cowpens  upon 
the  American  side  was  undoubtedly  the  effective  work  of 
Pickens's  marksmen.  It  was  this  which  in  the  very  com- 
mencement of  the  action  had  carried  terror  into  the  hearts 
of  Tarleton's  dragoons,  and  it  was  this  which  disorganized 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  384. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  227. 
*  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  383. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  51 

the  British  line  to  such  an  extent  as  to  render  it  only  a 
mob  when  the  critical  moment  of  the  onslaught  had  arrived. 
So  far  from  deserving  the  subsequent  preposterous,  though 
cruel,  censure  of  the  leader  they  served  so  well  that  day,  it 
was  Pickens  himself  who  received  the  sword  of  the  gallant 
commander  of  the  Seventy-first  Regiment.^  And  yet  it  was 
of  these  men  that  Morgan  wrote  years  after  that  he  would 
have  thanked  Tarleton  to  have  kept  them  in  their  ranks. 
AVhatever  confusion  occurred  among  them  this  day  was  the 
result  of  Morgan's  own  orders.^ 

Thus  ended  the  brilliant  but  cruel  career  of  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Tarleton  in  South  Carolina.  Lord  Cornwallis,  his 
commander,  loyally  stood  by  the  young  officer  to  whom  he 
had  intrusted  this  important  movement,  and  so  many  of 
his  best  troops.  "  You  have  forfeited  no  part  of  my  esteem 
as  an  officer  by  the  unfortunate  event  of  the  action  of  the 
17th,"  wrote  his  lordship  on  the  30th  of  January.  "The 
means  you  used  to  bring  the  enemy  to  action  were  able  and 
masterly  and  must  ever  do  you  honor.  Your  disposition 
w^as  unexceptionable ;  the  total  misbehavior  of  the  troops 
could  alone  have  deprived  you  of  the  glory  which  was  so 
justly  your  due."  ^     But  not  so  considerately  was  Tarleton's 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  883. 

2  In  Ids  official  report  Morgan  writes:  "Such  was  the  inferiority  of 
our  numbers  that  our  success  must  be  attributed  under  God  to  the  justice 
of  our  cause  and  the  bravery  of  our  troops.  My  wishes  ivoulcl  induce  me 
to  mention  the  name  of  every  private  centinel  in  the  corps.''''  In  an  order 
mentioning  the  names  of  the  commissioned  officers  in  the  action  the  general 
announces,  "  Colonel  Pickens  and  all  the  officers  in  his  corps  behaved 
well;  hut  from  their  having  so  lately  joined  the  detachment  it  has  been 
impossible  to  collect  all  their  names  and  rank  so  the  general  does  not 
particularize  any  lest  it  should  be  doing  injustice  to  others.''''  And  yet  it  is 
these  men  that  in  after  life  he  said  he  had  to  keep  in  their  places  by 
posting  men  to  shoot  them  down  if  they  broke  ! 

8  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  252.  Tarleton  did  not  reciprocate  his  lord- 
ship's generosity  ;  in  his  work  he  by  no  means  stands  by  his  chief,  who  so 


62  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

conduct  generally  regarded  in  the  British  army.  There  was 
much  jealousy  of  Tarleton  among  the  officers  of  the  British 
line,  whose  rank  as  commandant  of  the  Legion,  a  provincial 
organization,  superseded  officers  who  had  been  long  in  the 
service.  Especially  was  this  the  case  in  regard  to  Major 
McArthur  of  the  Seventy-first  and  Major  Newmarsh  of  the 
Seventh  or  Fusileers,  officers  who  had  held  commissions  long 
before  Tarleton  was  born.^  The  partiality  wdiich  the  Com- 
mander-in-chief constantly  displayed  in  Tarleton's  favor  was 
not  calculated  to  abate  this  jealousy  or  to  assure  him  the 
cordial  support  of  those  over  whom  he  was  thus  placed.  Had 
the  misfortune  of  the  battle  involved  only  the  Legion,  it  is 
not  probable  that  it  would  have  excited  so  much  criticism. 
But  it  was  observed  with  bitterness,  that,  while  after  the 
battle  few  of  the  Legion  cavalry  were  even  missing,  the  only 
body  of  his  infantry  which  escaped  was  the  guard  left  with 
the  baggage,  v/hich  had  not  reached  Cowpens  at  the  time 
of  the  action.  The  Seventh,  the  Seventy-first,  and  artillery, 
commanded  by  veteran  officers  who  had  not  been  in  any  way 
consulted  as  to  the  action,  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  impet- 
uosity of  this  officer,  without  experience  in  anything  but 
partisan  warfare.  It  was  impossible,  it  was  said,  to  form 
any  other  conclusion  than  that  there  was  a  radical  defect 
and  a  want  of  military  knowledge  on  the  part  of  Colonel 
Tarleton.  It  was  admitted  that  he  possessed  bravery  in- 
ferior to  no  man,  but  his  talents  never  exceeded  that  of  a 
partisan  captain  of  light  dragoons,  daring  in  skirmishes.^ 
Moultrie  relates  that  he  happened  to  be  in  Charlestown  at 
the  time  when  the  news  of   the  battle  was  received,  the 


magnanimously  supported  him  in  his  defeat.  In  his  Campaigns  he  lays 
blame  on  Cornwallis  for  many  things  which  at  the  time  he  himself 
approved.     Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy^  vol.  I,  Introduction,  17. 

1  Strictures  on  Tarleton'' s  Campaigns^  108. 

2  Hist.  Am.  War  (Stedman),  vol.  II,  323,  324.  I 


i 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  53 

particulars  of  which  he  knew  as  soon  as  the  British  there, 
Governor  llutledge  having  sent  in  a  person  on  some  pre- 
tence with  a  Hag,  but  in  fact  to  inform  the  American  prison- 
ers of  the  success,  news  wliich  he  at  once  communicated 
to  the  officers  at  Haddrell's  Point.  The  defeat  of  Tarleton, 
he  says,  chagrined  and  disappointed  the  British  officers 
and  Tories  in  Charlestown  exceedingly.  He  saw  them 
standing  in  the  streets,  talking  over  the  affair  with  very 
grave  faces.  Some  of  the  old  British  officers  who  were  made 
prisoners  and  paroled  to  Charlestown,  when  they  came 
down,  were  exceedingly  angry  at  their  defeat  and  were 
heard  to  say,  "  That  was  the  consequence  of  trusting  such  a 
command  to  a  boy  like  Tarleton."  ^ 

Ramsay,  the  historian,  glorying  in  this  American  victory, 
asserts  that  Tarleton's  defeat  was  the  first  link  in  a  grand 
chain  of  causes  which  finally  drew  down  ruin  both  in  North 
and  South  Carolina  on  the  Royal  interests. ^  It  is  scarcely 
to  be  wondered  at  that  an  author  who  had  collected  so 
little  information  in  regard  to  the  operations  of  the  partisan 
bands  in  South  Carolina  and  the  results  thereby  obtained 
as  to  hold  that  but  little  impression  had  been  made  by  them 
on  the  British  army  in  the  State,  that  Huck's  defeat  at 
Williamson's  (improperly  spoken  of  by  him  as  Williams's) 
plantation,  and  Hanging  Rock  were  the  only  checks,  and 
these  nothing  more  than  checks,  which  the  British  arms 
had  received  before  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain,^  which 
battle  in  itself  was  nothing  more,  according  to  him,  than 
an  "  unexpected  advantage,"  which  gave  new  spirits  to  the 
desponding  Americans,  who  did  not  even  know  of  the 
battle  of  Musgrove's  Mills  —  it  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered 
that  such  a  one  should  regard  the  victory  at  Cowpens  as 
the  day-dawn  of  success  upon  the  cause  of  liberty  in  these 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  IT,  250,  257. 
2  Ramsay's  Bev.  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  200.  3  /^j^vZ.,  174. 


64  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

States.  It  is  surprising,  however,  that  one  so  much  better 
informed  as  the  author  of  the  life  of  Greene  should  have 
fallen  into  the  same  mistake,  asserting  it  in  almost  the 
same  words .^ 

The  battle  of  Cowpens  was  much  nearer  the  end  of  the 
chain  of  causes  which  led  to  the  redemption  of  these  States 
than  to  its  beginning.  The  material  results  of  the  victory 
at  Cowpens  bear  no  comparison  to  those  obtained  by  the 
series  of  partisan  actions  which  culminated  at  King's 
Mountain,  and  which  were  enlarged  and  emphasized  at 
Fishdam,  Blackstock,  and  Hammond's  Store.  As  has 
been  shown  in  the  preceding  volume,  the  net  results  of 
these  engagements  had  been  three  to  one  in  favor  of  the 
Americans  in  killed,  wounded,  and  prisoners,  and  had 
resulted  in  disconcerting  a  campaign  in  which  the  whole 
American  cause  was  involved.  The  victory  at  King's 
Mountain  had  caused  the  abandonment  of  the  invasion  of 
North  Carolina  and  Virginia  at  a  time  most  favorable  to 
the  Royal  cause.  It  had  recalled  Cornwallis  to  South 
Carolina  just  as  he  was  about  to  commence  a  march  which 
but  for  this  cause  might  have  ended  in  a  junction  between 
Leslie  and  himself  in  Virginia  and  their  united  advance 
upon  Washington  in  the  Jerseys,  and  this  at  a  time 
while  the  British  fleet  had  command  of  the  American 
waters,  blockading  the  French  at  Newport.  It  had  delayed 
this  grand  movement  for  1780.  De  Grasse  had  arrived  in 
1781,  raised  the  blockade  of  Newport,  released  the  French 
army,  and  Cornwallis's  renewed  invasion  ended  in  surren- 
der. If  a  chain  is  to  be  drawn  from  the  fall  of  Charles- 
town  to  the  glorious  end  of  the  war,  its  first  link  will  be 
found  at  Williamson's  plantation,  when  Bratton  and  Lacey 
rose  upon  Huck,  and  its  last  at  the  capitulation  at  York- 
town. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  377. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  65 

The  material  results  of  the  battle  of  Cowpens  were  the 
destruction  of  the  best  regiment  in  the  British  service,  the 
loss  to  it  of  some  others  of  their  best  troops,  and  the  end 
put  to  the  terror  of  Tarleton.  Had  the  Seventy-first  Regi- 
ment been  present  at  Guilford  Court-house  it  would  most 
assuredly  have  rendered  efficient  service.  But  Tarleton's 
discredit  was  by  no  means  so  serious  an  injury  to  his  Maj- 
esty's cause  as  the  death  of  Ferguson,  who  was  an  abler 
and  a  better  man.  Nor  was  it  more  so  than  the  capture 
of  Wemyss.  It  was  a  glorious  victory  —  that  achieved  at 
Cowpens ;  but  it  had  no  decisive  effect  upon  the  opening 
campaign.  Cornwallis,  when  joined  by  Leslie,  notwith- 
standing it,  marched  as  he  had  purposed. 

Congress,  says  Lee,  manifested  their  sense  of  this  impor- 
tant victory  by  a  resolve  approving  the  conduct  of  the 
principal  officers  and  commemorative  of  their  distinguished 
exertions.  To  General  Morgan  they  presented  a  gold 
medal,  to  Brigadier  Pickens  a  sword,  and  to  Lieutenant- 
Colonels  Howard  and  Washington  a  silver  medal  each, 
and  to  Captain  Triplett  a  sword. ^ 

And  well  did  these  distinguished  officers  deserve  these 
remembrances  of  their  services.  But  Campbell  for  King's 
Mountain,  and  Sumter  for  Hanging  Rock,  Fishdam,  and 
Blackstock,  were  let  go  with  thanks.  Neither  Davie,  nor 
Shelby,  nor  Sevier,  nor  Clarke,  nor  Lacey  received  even  that 
compliment ;  nor  was  any  notice  taken  of  McCall,  under 
whose  influence  it  was  that  Pickens  was  again  in  the  field 
to  win  and  merit  so  distinguished  a  mark  of  his  country- 
men's approbation. 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  230. 


CHAPTER  III 

1781 

General  Sumter  has  been  much  censured  by  the  bi- 
ographers of  General  Greene  for  a  want  of  cordiality  in 
the  support  of  that  commander  during  his  campaign  in 
South  Carolina.^  How  far  this  censure  was  deserved,  the 
reader  will  be  able  to  judge  as  the  story  proceeds.  It  is 
manifest,  however,  that  General  Greene,  while  in  tlie  out- 
set warm  in  his  encomiums  upon  Sumter's  character  and 
influence,  upon  assuming  command  had  not  appreciated 
what  had  been  accomplished  by  Sumter,  Marion,  and  the 
other  partisan  leaders  during  the  months  in  which  the  State 
had  been  practically  abandoned  by  Congress;    and  that  he 

1  Great  Commanders  Series,  General  Greene  (Francis  Vinton  Greene), 
238,  248,  255,  265,  266  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  210,  216. 
The  Hon.  William  Johnson,  the  biographer  of  Greene,  was  the  son 
of  William  Johnson  who  took  so  active  a  part  in  the  early  movements  of 
the  Revolution.  He  was  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of 
South  Carolina  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-six,  a  judge  of  the  State  at 
twenty-eight,  and  an  associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  at  thirty-two.  The  author  of  this  work,  his  grand  nephew,  regrets 
to  find  himself  unable  to  concur  generally  with  the  views  and  judgments 
of  his  distinguished  relative  in  regard  to  the  great  leaders,  Greene  and 
Sumter.  Possibly  had  the  judge  the  advantage  which  the  author  has 
enjoyed  of  having  before  him  the  Sumter  manuscripts,  the  full  corre- 
spondence between  the  two,  and  much  that  has  come  to  light  since  he 
wrote,  he  might  have  modified  some  of  his  strictures  upon  Sumter  and 
have  been  persuaded  that  his  hero.  General  Greene,  was  not  always  in 
the  right,  nor  Sumter  so  much  in  the  wrong.  Judge  Johnson's  work, 
notwithstanding  his  partiality  for  General  Greene  and  hostility  to  Sumter, 
is,  nevertheless,  the  fullest  and  best  history  of  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution in  South  Carolina. 

56 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  57 

did  not  believe  in  the  system  of  warfare  which  they  had  so 
successfully  waged.  It  has  been  seen,  too,  with  what  dis- 
paragement and  affected  contempt  Morgan  was  accustomed 
to  speak  of  those  who  had  alone  achieved  so  much.  An 
officer  could  not  have  held  the  views,  concerning  a  part  of 
his  command,  expressed  by  Morgan  in  his  correspondence 
with  Greene,  and  indeed  maintained  during  the  rest  of  his 
life,  as  show^i  in  his  attempted  vindication  of  the  choice  of 
his  battle-ground  at  Cowpens,  without  imparting  that  opin- 
ion to  those  whom  it  affected.  Unfortunately,  too,  a  clash 
of  authority  occurred  between  Morgan  and  Sumter  in  the 
very  commencement  of  Greene's  command,  about  which, 
though  the  latter  wrote  most  kindly  to  Sumter  in  explana- 
tion, he  failed  to  remove  his  just  cause  of  complaint,  or 
even  to  attempt  to  do  so.  Very  probably  there  was  a  jeal- 
ousy on  the  part  of  the  heroes  of  Hanging  Rock,  Musgrove's 
Mills,  King's  Mountain,  and  Blackstock  of  the  command 
of  Continental  officers,  who  had  brought  with  them  neither 
men,  arms,  nor  clothing,  and  who  constituted  themselves 
nearly  all  the  reenforcements  Congress  had  sent.  Very 
probably  these  leaders  conceived  that,  if  the  struggle  was 
still  to  be  carried  on  by  their  men,  they  knew  best  how  to 
conduct  the  warfare.  In  all  this  they  may  have  been  mis- 
taken. Greene  and  Morgan  may  have  been  abler  generals 
and  more  competent  to  direct  their  movements  and  carry 
on  the  war ;  but,  if  so,  it  all  the  more  behooved  these  lead- 
ers to  be  careful  not  to  offend  the  sensibilities  of  those  who, 
having  so  long  and  so  well  fought  without  the  aid  of  Con- 
gress, were  now  called  upon  in  its  name  to  yield  obedience 
to  those  whom  they  did  not  know.  Morgan  came  with 
great  reputation.  He  had  been  at  the  siege  of  Boston, 
had  served  with  Arnold  upon  his  expedition  to  Quebec, 
and  had  been  distinguished  under  Gates  at  Saratoga ;  but, 
like  Greene,  he  had  never  had  an  independent  command. 


58  HISTOBY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Greene  had  been  sent  by  Washington  at  the  solicitation  of 
the  delegates  of  the  Southern  States  in  Congress,  but  his 
reputation  rested  solely  upon  his  being  the  choice  of  his 
Commander-in-chief.  He  had  never,  as  we  have  before  ob- 
served, commanded  an  army  or  served  in  the  field  anywhere 
but  under  the  command  of  another.  He  had  participated 
in  no  victory  except  the  surprise  of  the  Hessians  at  Tren- 
ton, in  which  he  accompanied  Washington. 

The  assumption,  too,  of  military  superiority  by  the  Conti- 
nental officers,  because  of  their  being  regulars,  over  the  parti- 
san leaders  had  really  but  little  substantial  ground  on  which 
to  rest.  Few  of  them  had  any  more  military  education  than 
those  upon  whom  they  affected  to  look  down.  Like  the 
partisan  leaders,  they  had  almost  all  been  plain  citizens  until 
the  Revolution  broke  out  four  years  before ;  nor  had  Charles 
Lee  nor  Gates,  the  professional  soldiers,  demonstrated  their 
greater  ability  in  the  field.  It  might  have  been  a  different 
matter  had  these  Continental  officers  brought  with  them 
a  body  of  regular  soldiers  sufficient  to  cope  openly  in  the 
field  with  the  British  regiments  of  the  line  and  the  well- 
trained  provincials —  American  Tories  —  from  the  North 
which  constituted  Cornwallis's  command.  But  this  they 
had  not  done.  They  had  come  only  themselves,  without  a 
following,  to  command  those  who  had  already  achieved  no 
mean  successes  without  their  leadership.  It  was  not  un- 
natural therefore  that  Sumter,  who  had  begun  his  military 
career  in  the  French  War,  had  served  under  Braddock  in 
1755,  while  Greene  was  but  a  boy,  and  under  Richardson 
in  1775,  in  the  "  Snow  Campaign,"  who  had  himself  been 
a  Continental  officer,  and  who  had  already  seen  so  much 
service  in  this  war,  should  be  somewhat  restive  under  the 
control  and  criticism  of  those  really  less  experienced  than 
himself.  But  he  exhibited  no  such  spirit  to  Greene  upon 
his  arrival ;  nor  do  we  think  it  can  be  discovered  afterwards. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  59 

General  Greene  brought  with  him  to  his  new  command 
an  unfortunate  habit.  He  was  a  voluminous  writer  and  a 
moralizer.  His  pen  was  as  busy  as  his  sword.  His  literary 
style  was  certainly  not  based  upon  Csesar's  Commentaries, 
which  we  are  told  he  had  studied  to  prepare  himself  for 
the  war.  He  wrote,  not  military  reports, —  clear  and  succinct 
accounts  of  the  battles  which  he  fought,  and  of  the  situa- 
tion and  condition  of  his  army,  —  but  long  personal  letters, 
going"  into  personal  details,  and  criticism  and  discussions, 
usually  of  complaint.  Such  were  his  letters  to  Washington, 
to  Lafayette,  and  to  Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania,  to 
each  of  whom  he  poured  out  his  troubles,  explaining  after 
each  battle  how  through  the  fault  of  others  it  had  not 
resulted  in  a  brilliant  victory.  Such  also  was  the  character 
of  his  communications  to  his  subordinates ;  and  indeed  to 
these  latter  there  was  withal  an  assumption  and  tone  of  supe- 
riority and  patronage  which  must  have  been  galling  to  men 
who  were  his  seniors  in  years  and  of  greater  military  experi- 
ence. Nor  did  he  restrict  himself  in  this  style  of  address  to  his 
subordinates ;  he  could  not  divest  himself  of  it  even  when 
addressing  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State.  To  a  remon- 
strance of  the  legislature  against  the  unjust  imposition  upon 
South  Carolina  of  the  support  of  the  cavalry  of  the  Conti- 
nental army,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  he  returned,  says  his 
biographer,  "  a  truly  parental  answer"  ^  — a  parental  answer, 
forsooth,  to  the  Rutledges,  Gadsden,  and  the  Pinckneys.  It 
is  difficult,  indeed,  to  understand  how  General  Greene  found 
the  time  amidst  his  pressing  duties  to  conduct  the  immense 
correspondence  he  carried  on  during  his  campaigns. 

On  the  3d  of  December,  Governor  Rutledge,  then  at  Char- 
lotte, wrote,  telling  Sumter  of  the  arrival  of  General  Greene, 
and  requesting  him  to  come  there  as  soon  as  his  health  and 
the  weather  would  permit,  for  he  was  still  suffering  from 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  392. 


60  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  wound  received  at  Blackstock.^  This  summons  Sum- 
ter at  once  obeyed  ;  and  it  also  appears  that  upon  this  con- 
ference he  urged  an  immediate  attack  upon  Cornwallis ; 
for  on  the  12th  Greene  wrote  to  him :  "  I  proposed  to 
Generals  Smallwood  and  Morgan  the  attack  upon  Lord 
Cornwallis.  They  are  both  pointedly  against  it,  as  im- 
practicable. I  am  not  altogether  of  their  opinion,  and  there- 
fore wish  you  to  keep  up  a  communication  of  intelligence, 
and  of  any  changes  of  their  disposition  that  may  take  place." 
In  this  letter  Greene  informed  Sumter  of  his  purpose  to 
change  his  position.  ^  On  the  15th  Greene  again  wrote  to 
him:  "Governor  Rutledgeshew[ed]  me  a  couple  of  notes 
which  you  sent  him,  wherein  you  express  a  desire  to  have 
a  detachment  made  from  this  army  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Catawba.  The  measure  you  wish  I  have  been  preparing 
for  ever  since  I  was  with  you  and  shall  have  the  troops  in 
readiness  in  a  day  or  two  at  farthest."  ^  But  while  both 
Governor  Rutledge  and  General  Greene  were  in  constant 
correspondence  with  Sumter,  as  if  he  were  in  actual  com- 
mand, as  he  really  was,  ^  his  Avound  still  prevented  his  per- 
sonally taking  the  field.  On  the  8th  of  January,  Greene 
writes  to  him,  from  his  camp  on  the  Pee  Dee  whither  Greene 
had  moved,  this  remarkable  letter :  — 

"  I  am  impatient  to  hear  of  your  recovery,  and  of  seeing  you  again 
at  the  head  of  the  militia.  General  Morgan  has  gone  over  to  the 
west  side  of  the  Catawba,  agreeable  to  what  I  wrote  you  before  I 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Brownfield,  General  Sumter's 
granddaughter,  in  Summerville,  S.C.,  published  in  the  Year  Book,  City  of 
Charleston,  1899  (Smyth),  Appendix,  71.  The  correspondence  between 
Greene  and  Sumter,  thus  published,  we  regret  to  observe,  is  very  inaccu- 
rately edited. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  73. 

3  Letter,  Sumter  MSS.,  ibid.,  73. 

4  See  letters  of  Governor  Rutledge  of  date  December  IG  —  20,  21,  25, 
Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1889,  Appendix. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  61 

left  Charlotte.  But  I  expect  he  will  have  but  few  men  from  your 
brigade,  until  you  are  in  a  condition  to  appear  at  the  head  of  them. 
Your  influence  in  bringing  them  out  is  not  only  necessary  but  the 
means  you  have  of  obtaining  intelligence  is  not  less  important.  I 
lament  exceedingly  your  wounds  confining  you  so  much  longer  than 
I  was  flattered  with,  from  appearance  at  the  time  I  was  with  you, 
and  I  esteem  it  no  less  unfortunate  for  the  public  than  myself.  If 
General  Morgan  don't  meet  with  any  misfortune  until  you  are  ready 
to  join  him  I  shall  be  happy  as  your  knowledge  of  the  country  and 
the  people  will  afford  him  great  security  against  a  surprise."  i 

Breaking  the  thread  of  this  flattering  communication, 
General  Greene  proceeds  to  pronounce  this  treatise  upon 
military  operations  in  general :  — 

"When  I  was  with  you  your  soul  was  full  of  enterprise.  The 
salvation  of  this  country  don't  depend  upon  little  strokes,  nor  should 
the  great  business  of  establishing  a  permanent  army  be  neglected  to 
perform  them.  Partisan  strokes  in  war  are  like  the  garnish  of  a  table. 
They  give  splendor  to  the  army,  and  reputation  to  the  officer,  but 
they  afford  no  substantial  national  security.  They  are  .  .  .  ^  should 
not  be  neglected  .  .  .  ^  they  should  not  be  preserved  to  the  i^rej- 
udice  of  more  important  concerns.  You  may  strike  a  hundred 
strokes  and  reap  little  benefit  from  them  unless  you  have  a  good 
army  to  take  advantage  of  your  success.  The  enemy  will  never 
relinquish  their  plan  nor  the  people  be  firm  in  our  favor,  until  they 
behold  a  better  barrier  in  this  field  than  a  volunteer  militia,  who  are 
one  day  out,  and  the  next  at  home.^ 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  73,  75. 

2  Illegible  from  mutilations  in  the  original. 

3  The  British  critics  of  the  war  at  the  time  took  a  very  different  view 
of  these  affairs  from  that  here  expressed  by  Greene.  "Most  of  these 
actions,"  it  was  said,  "  would  in  other  wars  be  considered  but  as  skirmishes 
of  little  account  and  scarcely  worthy  of  a  detailed  narrative.  But  these 
small  affairs  are  as  capable  as  any  of  displaying  military  conduct.  The 
operations  of  war  being  spread  over  that  vast  continent  by  the  new  plan 
that  was  adopted,  it  is  by  such  skirmishes  that  tlie  fate  of  America  must 
necessarily  be  decided.  They  are  therefore  as  important  as  battles  in 
which  a  thousand  men  are  drawn  up  on  each  side." — xinnual  Begister 
for  1781,  vol.  XXIV,  83.  "Too  mean  an  opinion  of  the  American  prow- 
ess seems  to  have  prejudiced  the  Commander-in-chief  (Sir  Henry  Clin- 


62  HISTOKY   or   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

"There  is  no  mortal  man  more  fond  of  enterprise  than  myself, 
but  this  is  not  the  basis  on  which  the  fate  of  this  country  depends. 
It  is  not  a  war  of  posts  but  a  contest  of  States  dependent  upon 
opinion.!  jf  ^e  can  introduce  into  the  field  a  greater  army  than  the 
enemy,  all  their  posts  will  fall  of  themselves,  and  without  this  they 
will  reestablish  them,  though  we  should  take  them  twenty  times. 
Nevertheless,  I  would  always  hazard  an  attack  when  the  misfortune 
cannot  be  so  great  to  us  as  it  may  be  to  the  enemy.  Plunder  and 
depredation  prevails  so  in  every  quarter  I  am  not  a  little  apprehen- 
sive all  this  country  will  be  laid  waste.  Most  people  appear  to  be  in 
pursuit  of  private  gain  or  personal  glory.  I  persuade  myself,  though 
you  may  set  a  just  value  upon  reputation,  your  soul  is  filled  with  a 
more  noble  ambition." 

There  was  some  general  truth,  of  course,  in  all  this. 
But  why  should  Greene  have  taken  this  occasion  to 
remind  Sumter  of  these  elementary  principles  of  warfare  ? 
"  When  I  was  with  you  your  soul  was  full  of  enterprise  " 
is  the  text  upon  which  this  discouraging  letter  is  written. 
''  The  salvation  of  this  country  don't  depend  upon  little 
strokes,  nor  should  the  great  business  of  establishing 
a  permanent  army  be  neglected  to  perform  them." 
Why  write  this  to  Sumter,  who,  still  suffering  from  his 

ton).  Thus  he  speaks  of  'a  small  body  of  ill-armed  peasants  full  as 
spiritless  as  the  militia  of  the  Southern  provinces.'  But  Lord  Cornwallis, 
who  knows  more  of  the  provinces,  aptly  replies,  '  The  list  of  British  offi- 
cers and  soldiers  killed  and  wounded  by  them  since  last  June  proves  but 
too  fatally  that  they  are  not  wholly  contemptible.'  " —  CUnton-Cornwallis 
Controversy^  vol.  I,  xii. 

1  And  yet,  strange  to  say,  it  was  to  be  the  boast  of  one  of  General 
Greene's  biographers,  claiming  for  him  the  results  of  Sumter's,  Marion's, 
and  Lee's  achievements,  accomplished  with  scarcely  his  sanction,  that 
"  by  the  unparalleled  success  of  this  imr  of  posts  the  American  leader  was 
doubly  benefited.  He  weakened  his  adversary  by  the  prisoners  he  made, 
and  strengthened  himself  by  constant  accessions  to  his  scanty  stock  of 
ammunition  and  stores.  This  was  one  mode  in  which  he  created  his  own 
resources,  compelling  the  enemy  to  furnish  him  with  materials  for  the  sub- 
sistence of  his  troops  and  their  own  annoyance.  By  no  other  plan  could 
he  possibly  have  maintained  himself  in  South  Carolina.''^  —  Caldwell's 
Life  of  Greene,  258-259. 


IN   THE   liE VOLUTION  63 

wounds,  was  planning  such  enterprises  against  the  enemy 
as  his  limited  means  admitted?  What  had  Sumter  to 
do  with  the  great  business  of  establishing  a  permanent 
army?  If  Washington  and  Greene  had  found  Congress 
deaf  to  all  their  arguments  in  favor  of  such  an  army, 
why,  by  repeating  them  to  him,  harass  Sumter,  who  was 
doing  all  he  could  to  supply  the  omission  of  that  body? 
Why  discourage  him  by  saying  that  he  might  strike  a 
hundred  strokes  and  reap  little  benefit  unless  he  had 
a  good  army  to  take  advantage  of  his  success  ?  If  it  was 
true  that  the  enemy  would  never  relinquish  their  plan, 
nor  the  people  be  firm  in  favor  of  liberty,  until  they 
beheld  a  better  barrier  in  the  field  than  a  volunteer 
militia,  why  remind  Sumter  of  the  fact,  when  Greene  had 
himself  brought  no  arni}^  to  his  assistance  ?  This  long  and 
carefully  prepared  and  studied  letter  must  have  been 
written  for  a  definite  purpose.  It  must  have  been  de- 
signed to  influence  Sumter's  conduct  in  some  way.  Its 
purpose  could  not  have  been  to  have  persuaded  Sumter 
to  raise  an  army;  for  Sumter  was,  at  least,  as  powerless 
to  do  so  as  Washington  himself.  The  only  effect  which 
the  letter  could  produce  was  to  dissuade  Sumter  from 
striking  any  more  partisan  blows.  Again,  why  write  all 
this  to  Sumter,  who  had  urged  the  gathering  of  all 
their  forces  at  this  time  and  making  a  grand  attack  upon 
Cornwallis  himself?  It  was  Smallwood  and  Morgan  — 
Continental  generals  —  who  had  opposed  the  scheme  of 
a  general  battle,  as  the  Continental  officers  did  again, 
as  we  shall  see,  when  a  most  favorable  opportunity  pre- 
sented itself  for  a  telling  blow. 

There  was  doubtless,  we  say,  some  abstract  truth  in  this 
letter  of  General  Greene ;  but  was  it  true  that  at  present 
the  war  was  not  one  of  outposts  ?  If  so,  and  if,  as  was  also 
true.  Congress  could  or  would  provide  no  grand  armies  to 


64  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

fight  great  battles,  then  there  could  be  no  war  at  all  —  at 
least  in  the  Southern  Department.  This  letter  was  writ- 
ten either  in  ignorance  of  what  had  taken  place  in  South 
Carolina  during  the  last  six  months,  or  in  want  of  appre- 
ciation and  disparagement  of  the  great  results  which  had 
been  accomplished.  The  war  of  outposts  had  been  so 
successfully  waged  in  South  Carolina,  as  has  been  shown, 
as  to  disconcert  the  grand  plans  of  the  enemy,  affecting 
their  movements  not  only  in  the  South,  but  in  the  North  as 
well.  By  this  war  of  outposts  the  partisan  leaders  here 
had  broken  up  the  grand  ministerial  plan  of  the  British 
campaign,  had  saved  Virginia  for  the  time  from  invasion, 
and  prevented  Leslie's  movements  in  concert  with  Corn- 
wallis.  The  war  of  outposts  had  required  Leslie's  army 
to  be  diverted  to  supply  the  losses  inflicted  by  these  volun- 
teer soldiers  upon  the  British  forces. 

But  it  is  needless  further  to  discuss  this  letter  of 
Greene's,  which  his  own  course  repudiated.  In  writing  to 
Sumter  that  he  had  been  preparing  ever  since  he  was  with 
him  to  send  a  force  to  the  other  side  of  the  Catawba,  as  if 
to  assure  Sumter  that  he  was  not  acting  upon  his  advice  in 
the  matter,  he  was  careful  to  observe  that  this  was  a  part 
of  a  plan  he  had  had  in  contemplation  ever  since  he  had 
come  to  the  ground.  Sending  Morgan  to  threaten  Ninety 
Six,  then,  was  not  upon  Sumter's  suggestion,  he  was  careful 
to  assert,  but  upon  his  own.  But  what  was  the  movement 
of  Morgan's  but  a  threat  of  an  attack  upon  that  outpost? 
a  threat  emphasized  at  Williams's  plantation  where  Wash- 
ington dispersed  Cuningham's  party.  We  shall  next  see 
Greene  sending  Colonel  Lee  with  his  Legion,  as  soon  as  it 
arrives,  to  join  Marion  in  an  attack  upon  Georgetown.  So 
that  within  ten  days  he  had  two  affairs  of  outposts  fought 
under  his  own  orders. 

The  misfortune  of  the  letter  of  General  Greene's  was 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  (j5 

that  it  failed  to  recognize  the  great  work  which  had  been 
done  by  the  volunteer  bands  in  South  Carolina,  and  seemed 
intended  purposely  to  belittle  its  residts.  If  Sumter  wms 
at  all  to  act  upon  it,  he  must  disband  his  parties  and  cease 
from  any  further  enterprises. 

The  letter  concludes,  however,  with  a  passage  which 
shows  that  Greene  was  not  ignorant  of  the  great  difference 
between  the  men  whom  Sumter  led  and  the  ordinary 
militia.     He  writes :  — 

"I  tell  you  in  confidence  —  I  am  in  distress — my  fears  increase 
respecting  subsistence  ;  and  if  the  State  of  N^orth  Carolina  continues  to 
bring  out  such  shoals  of  useless  militia,  as  they  have  done  in  the  last 
season,  it  will  be  impossible  to  subsist  an  army  in  this  country. 
Ten  of  the  militia  drawn  out  in  classes  are  not  worth  one  of  your 
men,  whose  all  depend  upon  their  own  bravery.  What  gives  safety 
to  one,  brings  on  ruin  to  the  other.  If  your  militia  don't  fight,  their 
families  are  exposed.  If  the  others  run  away,  their  persons  are 
safe." 

In  the  account  of  the  battle  of  Cowpens  an  allusion  has 
been  made  to  a  difference  which  had  arisen  between  Gen- 
eral Morgan  and  General  Sumter.  This  difference,  which 
was  never  reconciled  between  these  two  towering  spirits, 
which  was  to  have  lasting  and  far-reaching  consequences, 
arose  from  Morgan's  assumed  control  of  Sumter's  men, 
without  reference  to  him ;  and  as  this  difference  between 
the  two  involved  the  relation  of  the  States  to  the  Confed- 
eration, and  was  supposed  to  have  been  also  the  origin  of 
the  unfortunate  relations  which  grew  up  between  Sumter 
and  Greene  as  well,  it  deserves  more  than  a  passing  notice. 

It  will  be  recollected  that,  on  the  6th  of  October,  1780, 
when  there  was  not  a  Continental  soldier  in  South  Caro- 
lina, nor  any  south  of  Hillsboro  in  North  Carolina,  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  had  appointed  Sumter  brigadier  general, 
sending   him   full   instructions   and    intrusting  him  with 


QQ  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

great  powers.  He  was  directed  to  embody  all  the  militia 
he  could  collect,  and  to  hold  them  in  readiness  to  cooper- 
ate with  the  Continental  troops  when  they  should  come, 
receiving  orders  for  that  purpose.^  Morgan  had  been 
made  a  brigadier  general  in  the  Continental  army  on  the 
13th  of  October,  1780,^  so  that  Sumter's  commission  ante- 
dated Morgan's.  When  Greene,  upon  conference  with 
Sumter,  decided  to  send  a  detachment  to  the  west  of  the 
Catawba,  he  appointed  Morgan  to  that  command,  inform- 
ing him  that  he  would  be  joined  there  by  the  militia  of 
North  Carolina,  under  the  command  of  General  Davidson, 
and  by  that  lately  under  the  command  of  General  Sumter. 
"For  the  present,"  wrote  Greene  to  Morgan,  "I  give  you 
the  entire  command  in  that  quarter,  and  do  hereby  require 
all  officers  and  soldiers  engaged  in  the  American  cause  to 
be  subject  to  your  orders  and  command."  Under  this 
appointment,  Morgan,  as  has  been  seen,  had  been  sent  to 
that  region,  and  commenced  operations  threatening  Ninety 
Six.  A  part  of  Greene's  instructions  to  Morgan  was  to 
collect  provisions  and  forage  out  of  the  way  of  the  enemy, 
"  which  you  will  have  formed,"  he  wrote,  "  into  a  number 
of  small  magazines  in  the  rear  of  the  position  you  may 
think  proper  to  take."  ^  Under  these  instructions  Morgan 
reports  to  Greene  on  the  15th  of  January,  from  his  camp 
at  Burr's  Mill  on  Thicketty  Creek,  among  other  things,  as 
follows :  *  — 

"  Sensible  of  the  importance  of  having  magazines  of  forage  and 
provisions  established  in  the  country,  I  have  left  no  means  in  my 
power  unessayed  to  effect  the  business.      I  despatched  Captain  Chitty 

1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  devolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  813. 

2  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  I'kQ  ;  Historical  Begister  (Heitman),  11. 
»  Johnson's  TAfe  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  847  ;  collection  of  T.  Bailey  Myers 

of  New  York,  News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  S.C.,  May  10,  1881. 

*  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  370  ;  collection  of  T.  Bailey  Myers 
of  New  York,  News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  S.C,  May  10,  1881. 


IN   THE   BEVOLUTION  67 

(whom  I  have  appointed  as  commissary  of  purchases  for  my  com- 
mand), with  orders  to  collect  and  store  all  the  provisions  that  could 
be  obtained  between  the  Catawba  and  Broad  rivers.  I  gave  him 
directions  to  call  on  Colonel  Hill,  who  commands  a  regiment  of 
militia,  to  furnish  him  with  a  proper  number  of  men  to  assist  him  in 
the  execution  of  this  commission,  but  he,  to  my  great  surprise,  has 
just  returned  without  effecting  anything.  He  tells  me  his  failure 
proceeds  from  the  want  of  countenance  and  assistance  of  Colonel 
Hill,  who  assured  him  that  General  Sumter  directed  him  to  obey  no 
orders  from  me  unless  they  came  through  him." 

Upon  receiving  this  complaint  of  Morgan,  Greene,  on 
the  19th  of  January,  wrote  to  Sumter :  ^  — 

"  I  imagine  there  must  be  some  misapprehension  about  the  matter, 
for  I  cannot  suppose  you  could  give  an  improper  order,  or  that  you 
have  the  most  distant  wish  to  embarrass  the  public  affairs.  It  is 
certainly  right  that  all  orders  should  go  through  the  principal  to 
their  dependents  as  well  for  the  preservation  of  good  government  as 
to  inspire  a  proper  respect.  This  is  a  general  rule,  and  should  never 
be  deviated  from  but  in  cases  of  necessity  or  when  the  difficulty  of 
conveying  an  order  through  the  principal  will  be  attended  with  a 
fatal  delay.  In  that  case  the  order  should  be  directed  to  the  branches 
and  not  to  the  principal,  and  as  the  head  is  subject  to  the  order  the 
branches  are,  of  course,  for  it  would  be  very  extraordinary  if  a  cap- 
tain should  presume  to  dispute  an  order  from  his  general  because  it 
w^as  not  communicated  through  his  colonel.  At  the  same  time  that 
the  right  is  indisputable,  it  should  always  be  avoided  but  in  case  of 
absolute  necessity." 

General  Greene  then  continues,  assuring  Sumter  of  Mor- 
gan's high  regard  for  his  character,  and  that  if  there  had 
been  interference  contrary  to  the  general  principles  which 
should  govern  military  affairs,  it  must  have  happened 
through  inadvertence,  or  from  a  persuasion  that  Sarater 
had  not  intended  to  exercise  command  during  the  time  of 
his  indisposition.  Greene  dismisses  this  subject  in  his  let- 
ter, which  is  a  very  long  one,  with  this  appeal  to  Sumter's 
magnanimity,  ending,  as  usual,  with  a  moral  lecture :  — 
1  Sumter  MSS.,  Tear  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  79. 


68  HISTORY    OF    SOUTH   CAROLINA 

"  If  anything  in  his  [Morgan's]  conduct  has  had  the  appearance 
of  indelicacy  or  neglect,  I  hope  you  will  not  suffer  it  to  bias  your 
conduct  from  that  line  which  has  given  you  might  and  influence 
among  your  countrymen.  It  is  the  mark  of  a  great  mind  to  rise 
superior  to  little  injuries,  and  our  object  should  be  the  good  of  our 
country  and  not  personal  glory."  ^ 

If  Sumter  had  given  such  a  general  order  to  Colonel 
Hill,  about  which,  however,  Greene  expresses  a  doubt,  he 
certainly  erred  in  doing  so,  for  occasions  might  arise  in 
which  it  would  be  not  only  proper,  but  necessary,  that  in- 
termediate commanders  should  be  for  the  immediate  pur- 
pose overlooked,  and  the  order  extended  directly  to  the 
subordinate  officer  in  the  absence  of  his  immediate  com- 
mander. But,  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  but  pressing 
necessity  would  justify  such  a  deviation  from  the  general 
rule  requiring  all  orders  to  be  transmitted  through  the 
regular  channels;  and  this  case  seems  to  have  presented 
no  such  occasion  for  its  violation.     It  is  easy  to  understand 

1  Sumter  MSS.  Greene  writes  in  a  similar  strain  to  Morgan  :  "  I  am 
surprised  that  General  Sumter  should  give  such  an  order  as  you  mention 
to  Colonel  Hill,  nor  can  I  persuade  myself  but  that  there  must  be  some 
mistake  in  the  matter,  for  though  it  is  the  most  military  to  convey  orders 
through  the  principal  to  the  dependents,  as  well  from  propriety  as 
respect,  yet  this  may  not  always  be  convenient  or  even  practicable,  and 
therefore  to  give  a  positive  order  not  to  obey  was  repugnant  to  reason  and 
common  sense.  As  the  head  was  subject  to  your  orders,  consequently  the 
dependents  also.  I  will  write  General  Sumter  on  the  subject,  but  as  it  is 
better  to  conciliate  than  to  aggravate  matters  where  everything  depends 
so  much  on  voluntary  principles,  I  wish  you  to  take  no  notice  of  the 
matter  but  endeavor  to  influence  his  conduct  to  give  you  all  the  aid  in  his 
power.  Write  him  frequently  and  consult  with  him  freely.  He  is  a  man 
of  great  pride  and  considerable  merit  and  should  not  be  neglected.  If  he 
has  given  such  an  order,  I  persuade  myself  he  will  see  the  impropriety  of 
the  matter  and  correct  it  in  future,  unless  personal  glory  is  more  the 
object  than  public  good,  which  I  cannot  suppose  is  the  case  with  him  or 
any  other  man  who  fights  in  the  cause  of  liberty."  —  Collection  of  T. 
Bailey  Myers  of  New  York,  Keios  and  Courier ,  Charleston,  S.C.,  May 
10,  1881. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  69 

with  what  indignation  Sumter,  with  his  own  imperious 
temper,  received  this  lecture  on  his  conduct  and  patriotism 
in  a  matter  in  which  he  considered  himself  to  have  been 
the  injured  party.  He  appears  to  have  complained  to  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  upon  the  subject,  for  his  Excellency,  in 
a  letter  without  other  date  but  that  of  "  Sunday  night,  nine 
o'clock,"  but  which  bears  intrinsic  evidence  of  having  been 
written  on  Sunday  the  21st,^  and  which  was  sent  by  a  mes- 
senger from  Greene  to  Sumter,  who  was  now  carrying  the 
letter  from  which  we  have  just  quoted,  writes :  — 

"  Gen'l  Greene  and  you  understand  the  matter  with  respect  to 
you  not  having  any  command  at  present  in  a  very  difEerent  way  — 
as  I  perceived  on  speaking  to  him  a  few  days  ago  on  that  point. 
However  I  presume  he  has  explained  himself  to  you  respecting  it.  I 
am  sorry  to  hear  that  you  mend  so  slowly  and  that  the  enemy  are 
plotting  to  take  you,  but  I  hope  you  will  escape  all  their  endeavors 
and  be  able  soon  to  take  the  field  and  render  further  important  ser- 
vices to  the  country." 

This  letter,  after  giving  Sumter  the  latest  information 
from  Congress,  thus  concludes :  — 

"I  shall  be  glad  that  you  continue  to  give  Gen'l  Greene  and 
myself  the  earliest  intelligence  of  any  material  movements  of  the 
enemy  or  any  accurate  information,  reporting  any  which  app: 
material  &  you  will  give  out  orders  to  the  militia  in  your  Brigade 
not  already  in  the  field  with  Gen'l  Morgan  as  you  conceive  the 
good  of  the  service  renders  most  expedient."  ^ 

Johnson,  whose  devotion  to  the  reputation  of  Greene 
does  not  allow  him  to  see  any  justification  in  the  conduct 
of  those  who  in  any  way  crossed  his  views  or  plans,  thus 
severely  comments  upon  Sumter's  conduct  in  this  matter : 

1  The  Governor  mentions  in  this  letter  information  derived  from  a 
person  who  had  left  Camden  "last  Wednesday,"  that  Leslie  was  there  on 
that  day.  This  fixes  the  Wednesday  mentioned  as  the  17th  of  January, 
1781.     Leslie  crossed  to  join  Cornwallis  on  the  18th. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1889,  Appendix. 


70  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

"  It  is  not  easy  to  assign  a  satisfactory  or  even  plausible 
reason  for  Colonel  Sumpter's  interference  on  that  occasion 
to  prevent  his  officers  from  executing  the  commands  of 
General  Morgan.  The  commander  of  the  Southern  De- 
partment was  not  only  the  supreme  military  governor  of 
the  country,  but  Colonel  Sumpter  was  at  that  time  actually 
out  of  the  State  and  still  confined  by  his  wounds.  Colonel 
Sumpter,  it  seems,  complained  of  some  interference  of  Mor- 
gan with  his  commands,  but  in  what  instances  or  to  what 
effect  we  are  not  informed.  But  supposing  it  to  have  ex- 
isted, still  the  authority  of  General  Greene  was  sufficient 
to  sanction  it,  and  although  Colonel  Sumpter  might  have 
had  cause  to  complain,  nothing  could  justify  him  in  un- 
dertaking to  resist  the  execution  of  an  order  from  the  com- 
mander of  the  Southern  Department."  ^ 

This  criticism  is  scarcely  in  accord  with  the  high  judicial 
character  of  the  author.  He  admits  that  he  was  not  in- 
formed as  to  the  cause  of  Sumter's  complaint,  but  proceeds 
to  condemn  Sumter  upon  the  supposed  sanction  by  Greene 
of  Morgan's  conduct,  which  he  assumes  was  sufficient. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  Judge  speaks  of  Sumter  as 
"  Colonel^^  when  the  fact  is  that  Sumter  was  himself  a  Qen- 
eral^  with  a  commission  antedating  that  of  Morgan,  with 
whose  command  he  is  condemned  for  interfering.  The 
explanation,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Justice  Johnson  gives  in  a 
note,^  2.e.,  that  Morgan  had  been  made  a  general  to  obviate 
the  inconvenience  of  his  being  ranked  by  State  officers  into 
whose  districts  he  was  sent,  will  not  hold.  Indeed,  it  is 
conclusive  against  Morgan's  assumed  superiority  of  rank, 
for  it  presupposes  that  unless  his  grade  was  higher  than  the 
State  officers  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  he  would  be 
subject  to  their  command.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  gives  specifically  to  Congress  the  power  of  organiz- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  410.  2  jud.,  412. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  71 

ing,  arming,  and  disciplining  the  militia  of  the  States,  and 
governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be  employed  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States ;  ^  and  under  this  specific  power 
Congress  has  by  statute  provided  that  militia  officers,  when 
employed  in  conjunction  with  the  regular  or  volunteer 
forces  of  the  United  States,  shall  take  rank  next  after  offi- 
cers of  like  grade  in  the  regular  service. ^  But  this  pro- 
vision is  a  statutory  one  under  the  present  Constitution ; 
without  it  militia  officers  holding  senior  commissions  would 
rank  and  command  regular  officers  of  like  grade.  And 
this  was  the  case  of  Sumter;  his  commission  from  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  as  brigadier  general  antedated  Morgan's 
commission  of  the  same  grade  from  Congress.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation  which  gave  power 
to  the  Continental  Congress  to  govern  the  militia  of  the 
States.  ^  General  Sumter  was  only  subject  to  Greene's 
orders  as  directed  by  Governor  Rutledge ;  and  it  will  be 
observed  that  Governor  Rutledge  had  not  put  him  under 
Morgan's  command.  The  governor's  directions  were  that 
he  should  cooperate  with  the  Continental  troops,  and  give 
orders  to  the  militia  in  his  brigade,  not  already  in  the  field 
with  Morgan,  as  he  (Sumter)  conceived  the  good  of  the 

1  Art.  8,  Sec.  8,  Subdiv.  15. 

2  Articles  of  War,  124  ;  Bevised  Statutes  U.  8.,  241. 

'  In  1776,  when  General  Charles  Lee  undertook,  it  will  be  remembered, 
to  direct  the  militia  of  the  State  without  reference  to  the  Governor,  his 
right  to  do  so  was  at  once  questioned,  and  though  to  avoid  then  any 
conflict  of  authority  in  the  emergency,  John  Rutledge  as  President 
had  put  the  command  of  the  militia  under  Lee,  when  that  officer  intimated 
his  purpose  of  abandoning  Fort  Moultrie  Rutledge  promptly  intervened, 
resumed  his  authority,  and  wrote  to  Moultrie,  "  General  Lee  wishes  you 
to  abandon  the  fort.  You  will  not  without  a  written  order  from  me. 
I  would  rather  cut  off  ray  hand  than  write  one."  —  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the 
Bevolution,  1775-80,  140,  144,  And  again,  in  1779,  upon  the  invasion 
of  Charlestown,  his  Excellency  again  exhibited  his  jealousy  of  the  control 
of  Continental  officers  over  his  militia.  —  Ihid,  358,  359. 


72  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

service  rendered  most  expedient.  Morgan  had,  therefore, 
no  right  to  be  giving  orders  to  Sumter  himself,  still  less  to 
Sumter's  officers  without  Sumter's  knowledge.  But  sup- 
posing he  had  the  right  to  command  Sumter,  his  conduct 
in  other  matters  was  clearly  irregular  and  unjustified. i 

General  Greene,  in  his  letter  to  Sumter,  states  very 
correctly  the  military  rule  that  all  orders  to  subordinates 
should  go  through  intermediate  commanders,  and  that  the 
rule  ought  not  to  be  deviated  from  but  in  case  of  neces- 
sity; but,  strange  to  say,  he  does  not  attempt  to  explain 
to  Sumter  wherein  lay  the  propriety  of  the  application 
of  the  exception  in  this  case.  Assuming  Morgan's  right, 
by  virtue  of  the  Continental  commission,  to  command 
Sumter,  whose  commission,  of  equal  grade,  antedated  his 
own,  Greene  writes  to  Sumter,  upon  Morgan's  complaint, 
that  Morgan  was  an  exceedingly  good  officer,  who  perfectly 
understood  his  duty  and  had  the  highest  respect  for  his 
(Sumter's)  character.  But  that  did  not  meet  the  question, 
even  admitting  Morgan's  right  to  command.  The  truth 
was  that  Morgan's  order  to  Colonel  Hill  did  not  come 
within  the  rule  as  stated  by  Greene  himself.  The  order 
was  not  one  issued  in  an  emergency,  when  the  difficulty 
of  extending  it  through  the   regular  channels  would  be 

1  If  General  Sumter  had  really  given  such  an  order  his  precedent  was 
followed  by  distinguished  generals.  The  following  extract  is  given  from 
an  order  of  General  Andrew  Jackson  :  — 

"  Headquarters  Division  of  the  South,  Nashville. 
"  April  22,  1817. 
"The  Commanding  General  considers  it  due  to  the  principles  which  ought 
and  must  exist  in  an  army  to  prohibit  obedience  of  any  order  emanating 
from  the  Department  of  War  to  officers  of  this  division  .  .  .  unless 
coming  through  him  as  the  proper  organ  of  communication.  The  object 
of  this  is  to  prevent  the  recurrences,"  etc. 

General  Zachary  Taylor  is  said  also  to  have  denounced  such  violation  of 
military  usage.—  Two  Wars^  an  autobiography  (S.  G.  French),  160. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  73 

attended  with  inconvenience  or  delay.  It  was  an  adminis- 
trative order  of  a  permanent  character  —  an  order  directing 
Colonel  Hill,  one  of  Sumter's  partisan  leaders,  to  detail  a 
number  of  men  to  assist  Morgan's  commissary  in  collecting 
supplies,  an  order  detailing  men  from  Sumter's  command, 
without  his  approval  or  knowledge.  The  impropriety  of 
the  order  will  be  still  further  understood  when  it  is 
recollected  that  neither  Sumter  nor  Hill  had  any  men 
permanently  in  the  field  from  which  to  make  such  details, 
nor  was  there  really  any  militia  under  their  command.  A 
militia  presupposes  an  existing  established  government 
under  which  citizens  are  organized  and  called  into  the 
field.  It  cannot  exist  where  there  is  no  government  to 
regulate  or  support  it.  There  was  no  such  government  in 
South  Carolina.  Nearly  all  the  original  leaders  of  the 
Revolutionary  party,  including,  with  the  exception  of  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  himself,  all  the  State  officials,  were  either 
in  exile  at  St.  Augustine  or  confined  in  the  prison  ships  in 
Charlestown  harbor.  Dictatorial  powers  had  been  intrusted 
to  Governor  Rutledge  and  such  of  his  council  as  he  could 
convene ;  but  he  was  not  even  in  the  State.  Wisely  and 
properly,  he  remained  just  beyond  its  border,  under  the 
protection  of  Greene's  small  army;  for,  had  he  been  cap- 
tured, there  would  not  have  remained  a  nucleus  upon  which 
to  reorganize  a  government  when  the  State  should  be 
redeemed.  Sumter's  men  were  volunteers,  and  nothing 
more.  There  was  no  government  to  call  and  compel 
their  attendance,  as  there  was  none  to  support  them  while 
in  the  field  or  on  duty.  Under  Sumter's  call  they  would 
leave  their  families,  and  on  tlieir  own  horses  would  join 
him,  with  provisions  of  their  own  supplying  for  the  immedi- 
ate occasion.  But  it  was  the  immediate  occasion  only  for 
which  they  could  remain  in  the  field.  As  soon  as  that 
was  over,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  victory  or  defeat,  they 


74  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

must  return  to  their  farms  to  provide  for  their  families. 
It  was  from  these  people  that  Morgan  had  ordered  Colonel 
Hill  to  furnish  him  with  a  detail  to  assist  his  commissary 
to  gather  forage  and  provisions,  —  not  for  immediate  use, 
but  to  be  stored  away  in  magazines  in  his  rear.  It  was 
to  Sumter  himself  that  Governor  Rutledge  had  intrusted 
the  power  and  authority  to  call  out  the  militia,  as  the 
partisan  bands  were  called.  Whatever  questions,  if  any, 
might  arise  when  in  the  field,  as  to  the  right  of  a  Con- 
tinental officer  to  supersede  the  authority  of  a  State  officer 
of  equal  rank,  there  was  no  power  given,  nor  could  there 
be  any  given,  to  Continental  officers  to  draft  citizens  into 
the  service  ;  nor  would  such  an  order  have  been  tolerated 
in  any  of  the  States. 

General  Greene's  explanation  to  Sumter  of  Morgan's 
conduct,  that  it  had  happened  through  inadvertence,  or 
from  a  persuasion  that  Sumter  did  not  mean  to  exercise 
command  during  the  time  of  his  indisposition,  could 
scarcely  have  been  expected  to  have  satisfied  the  offended 
general,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Greene  himself  was  in 
constant  correspondence  and  communication  with  him,  as 
was  also  Governor  Rutledge,  and  that  communications  to 
Morgan  himself  were  passing  through  Sumter's  hands; 
that  during  this  very  time,  though  he  was  still  suffering 
from  his  wound,  Greene  was  relying  upon  him  for  intelli- 
gence as  to  the  enemy's  movements,  and  treating  him  in 
all  respects  as  if  in  actual  command.  Even  supposing  that 
this  was  a  proper  occasion  on  which  orders  might  be  sent 
to  a  subordinate  directly,  military  rule  required  that  the 
intermediate  commander  should  at  once  have  been  notified, 
and  a  copy  of  such  an  order  sent  him ;  and  as  both  Greene 
and  Morgan  were  in  communication  with  Sumter,  there 
was  not  the  slightest  excuse  for  Morgan's  conduct.^ 
1  See  U.  S.  Army  Begulations,  sec.  650. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  75 

It  is  true  that,  however  Sumter  might  justly  have  com- 
plained of  Morgan's  interfering  with  his  command,  and 
issuing  orders  to  his  officers  without  even  notice  to  him, 
he  had  no  right  to  refuse  to  obey  an  order  properly  issued 
because  of  his  disapproval  of  its  policy.  Nor  is  it  charged 
that  he  did  so ;  but,  further  to  complicate  the  matter,  the 
order  to  Hill  was  one  upon  a  subject  of  great  delicacy. 
How  was  this  forage  and  these  provisions,  which  Hill  was 
ordered  to  detail  men  to  gather  and  guard,  to  be  obtained? 
Greene  was  absolutely  without  money  to  purchase  them, 
and  the  provisions  thus  to  be  taken  and  stored  away  in 
magazines  were  to  be  impressed ;  that  is,  taken  by  force 
from  the  people  of  a  section  already  harried  by  the  march- 
ing and  countermarching,  pillaging  and  plundering,  of 
both  the  contending  armies.  We  have  seen  how  Washing- 
ton, the  year  before,  while  Greene  was  his  quartermaster, 
hesitated  to  resort  to  such  measures  in  New  Jersey,  though 
desperately  pressed  for  supplies,  and  that  every  such 
attempt  was  resented  in  the  Northern  States.^  It  was  to 
furnish  men  for  this  purpose  that  Hill  was  called  upon  by 
Morgan.  And  this,  too,  when  it  was  known  that  Sumter 
disapproved  of  the  whole  scheme  from  a  military  point  of 
view. 

In  this  opinion  Sumter  was  undoubtedly  right,  as  sub- 
sequent events  fully  proved.  The  folly  of  establishing 
magazines  of  supply  in  a  country  in  which  there  was 
no  army  to  protect  them  was  manifest  to  him.  Greene 
had  taken  a  position  at  Cheraw  which,  however  excellent 
in  his  opinion,  left  the  country  towards  the  mountains 
entirely  open  and  exposed.  Morgan's  small  force  was 
the  only  American  body  in  that  region,  and  that  was 
utterly  inadequate  to  do  more  than  strike  a  blow  and 
retreat.  To  collect  supplies  in  his  rear  therefore  —  more 
1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  841. 


76  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

than  sufficient  for  immediate  use  —  was  simply  to  collect 
them  for  the  enemy.  And  as  it  soon  happened  that  this 
country  was  abandoned  by  Greene,  supplies  collected 
there  would  have  fallen  into  the  enemy's  hands.  It  is 
curious  to  observe  the  inconsistencies  of  the  justifications 
of  Greene  and  Morgan  in  this  matter.  Judge  Johnson 
first  charges  that  the  opposition  of  General  Sumter  to 
Morgan's  collecting  magazines  in  his  rear,  put  an  end 
to  all  hope  of  a  rapid  retreat  to  the  mountains,  after  he 
should  have  given  battle  to  Tarleton.^  And  yet  farther 
on  he  declares  that  Morgan  was  unjustly  charged  with 
an  intention  of  crossing  the  mountains.  He  states  that 
nothing  was  less  consistent  with  the  facts  than  the  story 
which  first  made  its  appearance  in  Ramsay's  History  of  the 
Mevolution  in  South  Carolina  and  was  repeated  by  General 
Moultrie  in  his  3Iemoirs  ;  that  even  from  the  battle-field 
the  route  Morgan  took  led  away  from  the  mountains,  and 
towards  a  point  where  he  contemplated  forming  a  junction 
with  the  main  army.^  But  if  so,  why  then  blame  Sumter 
for  objecting  to  establishing  magazines  of  supplies  on  a 
route  Morgan  did  not  intend  even  to  follow?  Sumter  and 
his  men  had  been  too  long  holding  the  country  for  the 
coming  of  the  great  armies  from  the  North,  which  never 
arrived,  to  be  willing  to  strip  his  people  of  the  few  sup- 
plies they  had  to  be  stored  in  advance  for  such  forces  — 
stores  which,  collected,  as  he  foresaw,  must  inevitably  fall 
into  the  enemy's  hands. 

But  beyond  all  this,  and  more  far-reaching,  was  the 
radical  misconception  of  Greene,  to  which  he  persistently 
clung  tlu-oughout  the  campaign  until  Governor  Rutledge's 
return  to  the  State,  and  upon  which  almost  all  of  his 
complaints  against  Sumter  were  based,  in  assuming  that 
Sumter  had  a  regular  militia  under  his  command  which 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  371.  2  /^jv;.^  408. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  77 

he  could  call  out,  and  require  to  attend  under  adequate 
penalties,  whenever  he  saw  fit  of  himself  or  was  called 
upon  to  do  so.^  As  we  have  before  explained,  and  must 
again  impress  upon  the  reader,  there  was  no  civil  govern- 
ment in  South  Carolina,  during  this  time,  and  no  militia ; 
the  militia,  so  called,  were  but  the  personal  voluntary 
followers  of  Sumter,  Marion,  and  their  partisan  officers, 
over  whom  they  had  no  further  control  than  that  their 
own  patriotism  enjoined.  There  was,  hence,  nobody  from 
whom  Sumter  or  Hill  could  make  details  to  guard  stores. 

Morgan  and  Sumter  were  no  doubt  alike  imperious  in 
their  natures,  and  Sumter  was  unfitted  to  submit  to  the 
arrogant  tone  which  Morgan  assumed  in  regard  to  the 
men  Sumter  had  led  on  so  many  hard-fought  fields,  still 
less  so  to  Greene's  lectures  on  patriotism  and  personal 
conduct.  Very  likely,  from  what  he  had  himself  seen, 
Sumter  had  no  better  opinion  of  the  Continental  troops 
sent  to  the  South  than  Morgan  affected  to  have  had  of 
his  brave  followers.  But,  however  that  may  be,  upon 
a  review  of  the  unfortunate  controversy  which  led  to  the 
estrangement  of  the  two  principal  officers  in  the  coming 
campaign  in  South  Carolina,  Sumter  is  certainly  not  to 
bear  the  whole  odium. 

From  his  camp  on  Snow  Island  Marion  had  been  carry- 
ing on  successfully  his  raids  upon  the  enemy's  communi- 
cations with  Charlestown,  causing  them  to  expend  their 
forces  in  establishing  a  post  at  Nelson's  Ferry,  and  in 
guarding  every  exposed  point  below  the  Santee.  So  serious 
were   these   inroads    of  Marion  that  Tarleton,  it  will   be 

1  And  yet,  in  his  letter  to  Morgan  upon  the  question  between  Sumter 
and  himself,  before  quoted,  there  is  an  allusion  which  indicates  that  he 
understood  the  true  condition.  He  writes  to  Morgan,  urging  him  to  con- 
cilliate  Sumter  rather  than  aggravate  matters  "  where  everything  depends 
so  much  on  voluntary  principUs.'''' 


78  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

remembered,  had  been  sent  to  break  him  up  ;  but  had 
been  recalled  by  Cornwallis  to  defend  him  against  Sum- 
ter, who  had  just  defeated  Wemjss  at  Fishdam,  and  was 
then  at  Blackstock  on  his  other  flank.  Tarleton  had 
failed  to  find  the  Swamp  Fox,  but  had,  with  less  difficulty 
and  no  more  honor,  fallen  upon  Sumter.  As  soon  as 
released  from  Tarleton's  presence,  Marion  was  again  on 
the  road,  as  we  have  mentioned,  against  a  party  of  the 
enemy,  under  Majors  McArthur  and  Coffin,  about  Nelson's 
Ferry,  and  between  that  and  the  High  Hills  of  San  tee. 
With  the  hope  of  cutting  off  his  retreat,  a  strong  detach- 
ment had  been  pushed  from  Charlestown  to  Georgetown; 
but,  informed  of  the  movement,  Marion  had  again  retired 
to  his  safe  retreat  at  Snow  Island.  Curiously  enough, 
General  Greene,  who  had,  on  his  arrival,  received  a  report 
from  Marion  of  these  operations,  addressed  to  General 
Gates,  instead  of  lecturing  Marion  on  the  subject,  and 
informing  him,  as  he  informed  Sumter,  that  this  was  not 
a  war  of  outposts,  and  depreciating  his  partisan  strokes 
however  brilliant,  on  the  day  he  takes  command,  writes  to 
Marion,  on  the  contrary  :  — 

"  I  have  not  the  honor  of  your  acquaintance,  but  am  no  stranger 
to  your  character  and  merits.  Your  services  in  the  lower  part  of 
South  Carolina  in  awing  the  Tories,  and  preventing  the  enemy  from 
extending  their  limits,  have  been  very  important.  And  it  is  my  ear- 
nest desire  that  you  continue  where  you  are  until  further  advice  from 
me.  .  .  .  Until  a  more  permanent  army  can  be  collected  than  is  in 
the  field  at  present,  we  must  endeavor  to  keep  up  a  partisan  warfare, 
and  preserve  the  tide  of  sentiment  among  the  people  in  our  favor  as 
much  as  possible."  ^ 

But  if  this  was  true  for  Marion,  why  not  for  Sumter? 
Why  write  to  Marion  to  keep  up  a  partisan  warfare  until 
a  permanent  army  could  be  collected,  and  to  Sumter  that 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  357.  j 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  79 

partisan  strokes  in  war  are  but  the  garnish  of  a  table, 
giving  splendor  to  the  army  and  reputation  to  the  leaders, 
but  accomplishing  no  substantial  purpose  ?  If  it  was  worth 
while  to  encourage  Marion  to  preserve,  by  these  sallies,  the 
tide  of  sentiment  among  the  people,  why  discourage  Sum- 
ter by  telling  him  that  the  enemy  would  never  relinquish 
their  hold,  nor  the  people  be  firm  in  our  favor,  until  they 
had  a  better  barrier  in  the  field  than  a  volunteer  militia  ? 

In  his  letter  to  Greene  informing  him  of  his  appointment 
to  command  in  the  Southern  Department,  General  Washing- 
ton had  mentioned  that  he  had  put  Major  Lee's  corps 
under  marching  orders  to  join  him,  and  that  Congress  had 
promised  to  promote  Lee  to  a  lieutenant-colonelcy.  This 
Congress  had  done,^  and  Colonel  Lee  had  been  expected  to 
march  early  in  October  from  Philadelphia,  but  the  equip- 
ping and  disciplining  of  his  command  had  retarded  his 
movements ;  his  journey  from  Fredericksburg  to  Richmond, 
for  instance,  occupied  a  fortnight,  not  a  little  to  the  distress 
of  Greene,  who,  having  sent  home  Armand's  corps  as  no 
longer  to  be  depended  upon,  after  their  conduct  at  Gates's 
defeat,^  and  having  sent  all  of  Washington's  cavalry  with 
Morgan,  had  not  a  horseman  with  his  army.  In  Maryland, 
General  Greene  had  made  a  requisition  for  sundry  equip- 
ments for  the  Legion,  and  the  liberal  spirit  in  which  the 
requisition  was  complied  with  gave  Lee  an  opportunity  of 
equipping  his  cavalry  in  a  brilliant  style.  In  Virginia 
they  were  received  and  completed  by  Steuben,  and  moved 
on  at  the  same  time  with  a  body  of  recruits.^ 

1  Lieutenant-Colonel  Lee's  commission  was  dated  the  6th  of  November, 
1780.  —  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  172. 

2  See  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  673. 

•Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  354.  "The  Legionary  corps  com- 
manded by  Colonel  Lee,"  says  Judge  Johnson,  "was  perhaps  the  finest 
corps  that  made  its  appearance  in  the  arena  of  the  Revolution.  It  was 
formed  expressly  for  Colonel  Lee  under  an  order  of  General  Washing- 


80  HISTOEY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Virginia  had  now  collected  about  one  thousand  recruits, 
but  which  could  not  be  sent  into  the  field  for  want  of 
clothing ;  but  this  to  a  measure  Thomas  Jefferson,  Governor, 
remedied  by  impressment  under  his  very  extensive  powers, 
and  from  the  articles  thus  procured  Steuben  was  able,  by 

ton  whilst  the  army  lay  in  Jersey.  It  consisted  at  the  time  of  about  three 
hundred  men  in  equal  proportion  of  infantry  and  horse.  Both  men  and 
horses  were  picked  from  the  army,  the  officers  with  reference  only  to 
their  talents,  and  the  men  by  a  proportional  selection  from  the  troops  of 
each  State,  enlisted  for  three  years  of  the  war.  Virginia  contributed  twenty- 
five.  No  State  south  of  Virginia  contributed  any,  as  they  had  no  troops 
in  the  field.' '  This  must  be  understood,  of  course,  to  mean  that  the  three 
Southern  States  had  no  troops  in  Washington's  army,  for  the  Continental 
troops  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  were  stationed  on  the  southern 
coast.  It  may  have  been  that  there  were  no  troops  in  the  Legion  from 
any  State  south  of  Virginia,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  say  that  there  were  no 
troops  from  any  of  these  States  in  Washington's  army,  for  almost  the 
whole  North  Carolina  regiments  of  the  line  were  with  the  Commander-in- 
chief.  There  were  twenty-three  officers  of  the  Legion  during  the  service 
in  North  and  South  Carolina.  These  were  from  the  following  States  : 
from  Virginia,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Henry  Lee,  Commandant ;  Captains 
Patrick  Carnes,  Joseph  Eggleston,  and  George  Handy ;  Lieutenants  George 
Carrington,  William  Winston,  and  Peter  Johnson  ;  Cornet  Clement 
Carrington,  and  Dr.  Alexander  Skinner,  surgeon  (9)  ;  from  Pennsyl- 
vania, Lieutenants  Robert  Power,  and  Lawrence  Manning,  and  Dr. 
Matthew  Irvine,  surgeon  (3)  ;  from  Maryland,  Major  John  Rudulph, 
Captain  Michael  Rudulph  (2)  ;  from  Massachusetts,  Lieutenant  William 
Lovell,  adjutant  (1)  ;  from  New  Jersey,  Lieutenant  Jonathan  Snowden 
(1)  ;  from  South  Carolina,  Lieutenant  John  Middleton  (1)  ;  from  France, 
Captain  Ferdinand  O'Neill  (usually  spelled  O'Neall).  We  have  not  been 
able  to  ascertain  from  what  States  the  following  officers  came  :  Captains 
Archer,  Hurd,  and  James  Armstrong,  and  Lieutenants  Lunsford  and 
Jordan  (5).  To  these  officers  should  be  added  Alexander  Garden,  who 
served  for  some  time  with  the  Legion  as  a  volunteer  after  its  arrival  in 
South  Carolina.  On  the  arrival  of  the  Legion  in  South  Carolina  Governor 
Ruttledge,then  at  the  Cheraws,  gave  Colonel  Lee  authority  for  recruiting 

it  in  the  State  :  — 

"  Cheraws,  11  January,  1781. 

"Colonel  Lee,  being  desirous  of  raising  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
cavalry  on  a  regular  and  permanent  establishment  to  be  attached  to  his 
Legion,  I  do  not  only  consent  to  his  doing  so,  but  recommend  to  active 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  81 

the  1st  of  December,  to  equip  four  hundred  of  these 
recruits,  enlisted  for  eighteen  months  (a  great  part  of 
which  had  already  expired),  in  a  condition  fit  to  be  marched 
to  the  Southern  army ;  this  detachment,  together  with  a 
corps  commanded  by  Colonel  Lawson,  supposed  to  contain 
five  hundred  men,  were  put  under  marching  orders  for  the 
third  of  the  month  from  Petersburg,  and  Steuben  wrote  in 
high  spirits  to  Greene  that  he  should  forward  on  to  him  a 
reenforcement  of  twelve  hundred  men,  consisting  of  Lee's 
and  Lawson's  legions  and  the  four  hundred  recruits,  to 
meet  the  enemy's  reenforcements  under  Leslie.  Steuben 
was  fully  alive  to  the  importance  of  time,  not  only  for 
the  purpose  of  giving  strength  to  the  Southern  army,  but 
to  anticipate  any  interruption  to  the  marching  of  these 
troops  from  another  invasion  of  Virginia,  an  event  by  no 
means  improbable  or  distant,  from  the  intelligence  from 
New  York ;  an  apprehension  which  subsequent  events 
proved  to  be  w^ell  founded,  for  these  troops  finally  moved 
off  barely  in  time  to  avoid  being  detained  to  oppose 
Arnold,  who  had  been  sent  by  Sir  Henry  Clinton  to  re- 
place Leslie,  upon  his  diversion  to  South  Carolina.  But 
when  the  day  appointed  for  the  march  of  Lawson's  corps 
and  the  recruits  came,  not  a  man  could  be  moved  from  the 
ground.  Only  one-half  of  Lawson's  corps  paraded,  and 
they  were  ordered  by  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  to  be 
discharged  because  their  term  of  service  was  far  advanced 
to  a  termination,  and  the  officers  of  the  detachment  of 
recruits  had  sent  a  remonstrance  to  the  legislature  com- 
plaining of  ill-usage.     Lawson's  corps  was  discharged,  and 

and  spirited  young  men  in  this  State,  to  join  him  upon  that  footing, 
■whereby  they  may  signalize  themselves  and  render  important  service  to 
their  country.  -  "J.  Ruttledge." 

We  have  found  no  account  of  the  raising  of  such  an  additional  corps  to 

the  Legion.' 

»  Campaigns  of  81  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  72. 


82  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  four  hundred  recruits  detained  until  the  middle  of 
the  month,  that  the  officers  might  settle  their  differences 
with  the  government.  On  the  15th,  however,  Steuben 
had  the  happiness  to  see  Colonel  Green  with  four  hundred 
men,  and  Colonel  Lee  with  his  Legion  of  three  hundred, 
move  off  for  the  Southern  army.  On  the  11th  of  January 
they  reached  General  Greene's  encampment  on  the  Pee  Dee, 
where  Lee  had  been  for  some  time  impatiently  expected 
in  order  to  carry  into  effect  a  plan  of  operation  projected 
against  Georgetown.^ 

Marion  had  been  commissioned  brigadier  general  by 
Governor  Rutledge  soon  after  Sumter's  appointment,  and 
about  the  beginning  of  this  year  he  organized  his  staff  by 
the  appointment  of  two  aides,  Thomas  Elliott  and  Lewis 
Ogier.  His  principal  officers  and  counsellors  were  Colo- 
nels Peter  and  Hugh  Horry  and  James  Postell.  Putting 
in  requisition  all  the  saws  and  all  the  blacksmiths  in  the 
country,  he  made  swords,  and  with  them  armed  four  troops 
of  cavalry  which  he  raised  and  organized  into  another  regi- 
ment. The  command  of  this  he  gave  to  Colonel  Peter 
Horry,  who  had  been  major  under  him  in  the  Second  Con- 
tinental Regiment,  and  who  was  an  excellent  officer.  Beni- 
son,  who  had  been  wounded  at  Nelson's  Ferry  when  the 
prisoners  of  the  Maryland  line  had  been  recaptured,^  was 
made  major ;  the  captains  were  John  Baxter,  John  Postell, 
Daniel  Conyers,  and  James  McCauley.  A  company  of 
riflemen  was  also  organized  under  Captain  William 
McCottry,  which  soon  became  the  dread  of  the  enemy. 
These  were  a  new  race  of  young  warriors  who  had  sprung 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  354,  355,  356.  Johnson  gave  the 
date  of  Lee's  arrival  as  the  12th,  but  Governor  Rutledge  at  the  Cheraws 
on  the  11th  gives  Lee  authority  to  raise  150  cavalry  for  his  Legion  in 
South  Carolina.  —  Campaigns  of ''81  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  73. 

2  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  devolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  700. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  83 

up  during  the  contest.  The  retirement  of  the  British  de- 
tachment from  Georgetown  leaving  Marion  free  to  resume 
operations  with  the  force  thus  organized,  he  pushed  down 
his  parties  near  to  Georgetown  on  all  the  rivers  that  flow 
into  Georgetown  Bay,  and  employed  them  in  collecting 
boats  and  removing  provisions  to  Snow  Island.  Captain 
John  Postell^  was  sent  down  Black  River  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Pee  Dee  with  twenty-eight  men,  to  take  all  the  boats 
and  canoes,  to  impress  all  the  negroes  and  horses,  and  to  take 
all  arms  and  ammunition  for  the  use  of  the  service.  He  was 
to  forbid  all  persons  from  carrying  grain,  stock,  or  any  sort 
of  provision  to  Georgetown,  or  where  the  enemy  might  get 
them ;  all  persons  who  would  not  join  him  he  was  to  bring 
to  Marion. 

On  the  18th  of  January  Captain  James  De  Peyster,  with 
twenty-nine  grenadiers  of  the  British  army,  had  posted 
himself  in  the  dwelling-house  of  Captain  Postell's  father. 
Towards  day  on  the  morning  of  the  19th,  Postell,  knowing 
well  the  ground  and  avoiding  the  guards,  got  possession 
of  the  kitchen  and  summoned  De  Peyster  to  surrender. 
This  was  at  first  refused,  whereupon  the  rebel  captain  at 
once  set  fire  to  his  father's  kitchen,  and  summoned  De 
Peyster  a  second  time,  with  the  positive  declaration  that 
if  he  did  not  surrender  he  would  burn  the  house.  Upon 
this  the  British  laid  down  their  arms  and  surrendered 
immediately  .2 

Soon  after  this  Colonel  Peter  Horry  had  an  affair  with 
the  enemy  in  which  he  was  able  to  test  the  qualities  of  his 

1  Captain  Postell  was  an  officer  of  experience ;  he  had  been  a  captain 
in  one  of  the  independent  provincial  companies  prior  to  the  Revolution, 
and  as  such  accompanied  De  Brahm  in  1756  in  establishing  Fort  Prince 
George  at  Keowee,  afterwards  the  scene  of  the  Indian  massacre  of 
Coytomore's  garrison.  —Documents  connected  with  So.  Ca.  (Weston), 
208  ;  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  under  Boy.  Gov.  (McCrady),  341. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  93. 


84  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAllOLINA 

newly  organized  regiment.  It  was  the  boast  of  the  Tories 
that,  though  Marion  had  proved  too  cunning  for  Colonel 
Tynes,  Captain  Barfield,  and  other  British  and  loyal  offi- 
cers, there  was  still  one  who  would  show  hiin  quite  a  dif- 
ferent sort  of  play  ;  and  that  was  Colonel  Gainey,  from  the 
head  waters  of  the  Pee  Dee.^  It  was  against  this  officer 
that  Colonel  Horry  had  now  to  lead  his  recruits.  On  the 
morning  of  a  day  in  the  latter  part  of  January,  Marion 
ordered  him  with  Captain  Snipes  and  thirty  men  to  pro- 
ceed down  the  Sampit  Road  in  quest  of  the  enemy,  and  to 
charge  them  when  found,  whether  British  or  Tories.  In 
obeying  this  order  Horry  soon  came  upon  a  party  of  horse- 
men who  were  engaged  in  killing  beeves  for  the  camp 
near  by.  He  instantly  charged  them  before  they  had  an 
opportunity  to  form.  They  fled,  and  were  pursued  through 
woods  towards  Georgetown,  with  some  disorder  on  the  side 
of  Horry.  In  the  meantime  the  firing  was  heard  in  the 
town,  and  the  Tories  under  Gainey  came  out  to  the  rescue 
of  their  friends.  A  savage  fight  now  took  place  in  the 
woods  between  the  Sampit  and  Black  River  roads  during 
the  whole  morning,  the  opposing  parties  alternately  ad- 
vancing and  retreating.  At  one  time  Horry  was,  as  he 
supposed,  left  alone,  and  a  party  of  the  Tories  under  Cap- 
tain Lewis  was  rushing  upon  him,  when  a  boy  by  the  name  of 
Gwyn  shot  Lewis  from  behind  a  tree,  upon  which  his  party, 
fearing  an  ambuscade,  deserted  their  leader  and  ran  away. 
As  Lewis  fell  his  gun  was  discharged  and  killed  Horry's 
horse.  The  Tories  were  finally  routed  and  chased  into 
Georgetown.  In  this  affair  Sergeant  McDonald  who,  it 
will  be  recollected,  was  one  of  the  three  of  the  prisoners 
released  by  Colonel  Hugh  Horry  at  Nelson's  Ferry  who 
availed  themselves  of  their  rescue  and  remained  faithful  to 
the  cause,  first  exhibited  the  daring  spirit  and  address  for 
1  Weems's  Marion^  167. 


IN   THE   KE VOLUTION  85 

which  he  afterwards  became  noted.  In  the  pursuit  McDon- 
ald singled  out  Gainey  as  his  object  of  attack.  In  going 
at  full  speed  down  the  Black  River  Road  he  shot  one  of 
Gainey 's  men,  and,  overtaking  Gainey  soon  after,  thrust  a 
bayonet  up  to  the  hilt  in  his  back.  The  bayonet  separated 
from  the  gun,  and  Gainey  reached  Georgetown  with  the 
weapon  still  in  his  person.  He  recovered,  but,  cured  of 
his  taste  for  the  field  or  tired  of  garrison  life,  after  a  few 
months  he  and  his  men  deserted  the  British. ^ 

While  thus  engaged,  Marion  received  intelligence  of  tlie 
organization  of  a  force  of  Tories  under  Hector  McNeill  at 
Amie's  Mill  on  Downing  Creek,^  on  the  confines  of  the  two 
States.  This  Hector  McNeill  was  a  person  of  some  celebrity 
in  North  Carolina.  He  had,  in  the  commencement  of  the 
Revolution,  held  a  commission  in  one  of  the  provincial 
regiments  of  that  State, ^  but  had  deserted  the  cause  as 
early  as  1776  and  had  taken  up  arms  against  it.  Marion 
had  no  force  to  send  against  McNeill,  nor  could  he  afford  to 
wait  his  coming  while  his  own  party  was  broken  up  into 
detachments.  He,  therefore,  called  in  his  parties  and  com- 
municated to  General  Greene  the  necessity  to  reenforce  him 
against  his  increasing  enemies,  and  to  look  to  the  move- 
ments of  McNeill,  as  he  supposed  them  to  be  in  part 
directed  against  the  country  between  the  Waccamaw  and 
the  seacoast,  which  had  never  been  foraged  and  contained  at 
this  time  abundance  of  provisions.  This  was  the  situation 
of  things  when  Colonel  Lee  reached  Greene's  camp  at 
Cheraw.  He  was  immediately  ordered  to  join  Marion 
with  his  corps,  comprising,  on  its  arrival,  about  280  in  horse 
and  foot,  and  which  was  in  excellent  condition,  as  it  had 
come   in  easy  march  from  Virginia.     At  the  same  time, 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  93-94. 

^  Now  Lumber  River. 

3  Wheeler's  Hist,  of  No.  Ca.,  voL  I,  71. 


86  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Greene  detached  Major  Anderson  with  a  party  of  regulars 
and  one  hundred  Virginia  militia  to  attack  and  disperse 
the  Tories  at  Amie's  Mill.^ 

Colonel  Lee  reached  Marion's  camp  on  the  23d  of  Janu- 
ary, and  on  the  24tli,  in  pursuance  of  a  plan  previously 
agreed  upon  and  approved  by  Greene,  a  combined  attempt 
was  made  to  surprise  Georgetown.  The  garrison  of  the 
town  consisted  of  two  hundred  men  commanded  by  Colonel 
Campbell.  There  were  some  slight  defensive  works  in 
front  of  the  town  on  the  land  side ;  but  the  rear  of  the 
place  was  wholly  undefended,  and  dams  running  through 
the  adjacent  rice  fields,  extending  from  the  rear  of  the 
town,  afforded  easy  access  to  it  on  the  southeast.  The 
plan  of  attack  was  founded  on  the  facility  with  which  a 
force  might  be  conveyed  down  the  Pee  Dee,  undiscovered 
because  of  the  woods  and  deep  swamps  which  covered  its 
banks.  The  force  comprising  the  expedition  was  divided 
into  two  parties.  The  infantry  of  the  Legion,  about  ninety 
men,  under  Captains  Carnes^  and  Rudulph,^  were  to  drop 
down  the  Pee  Dee  from  Snow  Island  in  boats  and  under 
guides  provided  by  Marion.  The  militia  and  cavalry  of 
the  Legion,  under  Marion  and  Lee,  were  to  approach  the 
town  by  the  land  side  under  cover  of  night,  and  when  the 
infantry  entered  the  town  from  the  water  in  the  rear,  they 
were  to  assail  it  in  front. 


1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  358-359 ;  James's  Life  of  Marion, 
Appendix,  16.  Letter  of  General  Greene  to  Marion  of  January  19,  1781, 
given,  in  which  General  Greene  says,  "I  have  detached  one  thousand 
regulars  and  one  hundred  Virginia  militia  to  attack  and  disperse  the 
Tories  at  Mr.  Amy's  Mill,"  etc.,  but  there  must  he  some  mistake,  prob- 
ably one  hundred. 

2  Patrick  Games,  Virginia,  entered  service  as  Lieutenant  Second 
Cavalry,  Pulaski  Legion.  —  Heitman,  116. 

*  John  Rudulpli,  of  Maryland,  entered  service  as  Lieutenant  in  the 
Legion.  —  Heitman,  352. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  87 

In  pursuance  of  this  plan,  Captain  Carnes  fell  silently 
down  the  river  with  his  party  the  first  night,  and  occupied  an 
island  at  its  mouth  within  a  few  miles  of  Georgetown.  He 
lay  concealed  there  the  ensuing  day,  with  directions  to  re- 
embark  at  an  early  hour  the  night  following  and  reach 
Georgetown  between  one  and  two  in  the  morning.  Marion 
and  Lee  proceeded  to  their  destination,  having  taken  all 
the  requisite  precautions  to  prevent  any  intimation  to  the 
enemy  of  their  approach.  At  twelve  o'clock  the  second 
night  they  occupied,  unperceived,  a  position  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  town,  and  waited  anxiously  for  the  announcement  of 
Carnes's  arrival.  At  the  appointed  time,  Carnes  crossed 
from  the  island  to  Georgetown,  and  landed  in  the  town 
unperceived.  The  garrison  was  surprised,  and  the  com- 
mandant, Colonel  Campbell,  was  seized  and  secured  by 
Captain  Carnes,  who  judiciously  posted  his  party  for  seiz- 
ing any  of  the  enemy  who  might  repair  to  the  parade 
ground.  Captain  Rudulph,  who  led  another  party  with 
equal  good  fortune,  gained  the  vicinity  of  the  fort  and 
arranged  his  troops  so  as  to  arrest  any  fugitive.  On  the 
first  fire,  which  took  place  at  the  commandant's  quarters, 
Marion  with  his  men  and  Lee  with  his  dragoons  rushed 
into  the  town.  To  the  astonishment  of  these  officers,  says 
Colonel  Lee,  everything  was  quiet,  the  Legion  infantry  hold- 
ing its  assigned  stations  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Campbell 
a  prisoner.  Not  a  British  soldier  appeared ;  not  one  at- 
tempted to  gain  the  forts  or  repair  to  the  commandant. 
Having  discovered  their  enemy,  the  British  troops  kept  close 
to  their  respective  quarters,  barricaded  the  doors,  and  de- 
termined there  to  defend  themselves.  The  assailants  were 
unprovided  with  the  requisite  implements  for  battering 
doors  and  scaling  windows.  The  fort  was  in  the  possession 
of  the  enemy,  and,  daylight  approaching,  Marion  and  Lee 
were,  therefore,  compelled  to  retire  with  a  partial  accom- 


88  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

plisliment  of  their  object.  Colonel  Campbell  was  suffered 
to  remain  on  parole,  and  the  troops  withdrew  from  George- 
town unhurt  and  unannoyed.  Colonel  Lee  attributed  the 
want  of  success  to  the  tenderness  of  Marion  and  himself 
for  the  lives  of  their  followers  ;  'and  supposes  that  if  instead 
of  placing  Rudulph's  detachment  to  intercept  the  fugitives 
it  had  been  ordered  to  carry  the  fort  by  bayonet,  suc- 
cess would  have  been  complete. ^  Johnson,  on  the  other 
hand,  quotes  Moultrie  as  alleging  that  in  the  hurry  and 
confusion  the  guides  became  alarmed  and  frightened  and 
lost  their  way  to  the  fort;  and  that  the  cavalry  did  not 
arrive  in  time  to  cooperate  with  the  infantry.  The  Amer- 
icans sustained  no  loss.  The  loss  of  the  British  is  not 
known.  Lee  reported  to  Greene  that  "  many  were  killed, 
few  taken,  among  the  former  is  Major  Irvine,  among  the 
latter  Colonel  Campbell,  the  commmander  of  the  garrison."  ^ 
The  British  acknowledged  the  death  of  Major  Irvine  of  the 
Loyal  militia  and  the  capture  of  Colonel  Campbell  and 
another  officer.^  Major  Irvine,  it  is  related,  was  killed  by 
one  of  Marion's  officers.  Lieutenant  Cryer,  who  had  been 
whipped  by  Irvine's  orders  some  time  before  for  attempt- 
ing to  take  away  his  horse  from  Georgetown.* 

While  this  brilliant  if  not  entirely  successful  attempt 
upon  Georgetown  had  not  resulted  in  the  capture  of  the 
garrison  as  had  been  hoped,  it  checked  the  forwarding  of 
reenforcements  to  Cornwallis  and  caused  another  dispersion 
of  the  British  troops,  for,  upon  learning  of  the  narrow 
escape  of  Georgetown,  a  considerable  reenforcement  was 
sent  there. 

In  the  orders  under  which  Colonel  Lee  marched  to  join 

1  3femoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  224,  225. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  360. 

8  The  So.  Ca.  and  Am.  Gen.  Gazette,  January  31,  178L 
*  James's  Life  of  Marion,  91. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  89 

Marion  he  was  instructed  to  direct  his  attention  first  to  the 
surprise  of  Georgetown,  and  then  to  an  attempt  on  Watson, 
who  had  taken  post  at  Nelson's  Ferry ;  and,  notwithstand- 
ing Marion  had  expressed  strong  doubts  of  the  practicabil- 
ity of  succeeding  against  Watson,  Greene  still  urged  him 
to  attempt  it.  Accordingly,  after  the  attack  upon  George- 
town, Marion  and  Lee  moved  the  same  day  directly  up  the 
north  bank  of  the  Santee  towards  Nelson's  Ferry.  But  Wat- 
son did  not  wait  to  receive  them.  After  throwing  a  gar- 
rison of  about  eighty  men  into  Fort  Watson,  ten  miles  above 
Nelson's  Ferry,  he  moved  off  to  Camden.  An  attempt 
was  then  made  to  throw  a  detachment  of  dragoons  across 
the  river,  with  orders  to  ascend  its  south  bank  and  destroy 
the  enemy's  stores  at  Colonel  Thomson's  plantation,  in 
what  is  now  Orangeburg  County,  and  some  other  depots 
on  the  Congaree.  Some  delay  ensued  from  the  want  of 
boats,  but  the  detachment  was  out  on  that  service  when 
Colonel  Lee  was  recalled  with  orders  to  hasten  to  Salis- 
bury and  join  Morgan  there,  retreating  before  Cornwallis.^ 
It  is  necessary  therefore  now  to  recur  to  the  movements  of 
the  opposing  forces  west  of  the  Catawba. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  I,  362. 


CHAPTER  IV 

1781 

When  the  battle  of  Cowpens  was  fought  the  positions  of 
the  British  and  American  forces,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind, 
were  as  follows :  Morgan  and  Tarleton  were  fighting  at  the 
Cowpens,  some  twenty  miles  west  of  Broad  River;  Corn- 
wallis  lay  with  the  main  British  army  at  Turkey  Creek, 
between  the  Broad  and  the  Catawba ;  Leslie  with  his  reen- 
forcements  was  at  Camden  just  east  of  the  Catawba,  there 
known  as  the  Wateree ;  while  Greene  with  his  little  army 
was  opposite  Cheraw  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Pee  Dee ; 
and  Marion  lay  at  Snow  Island,  a  hundred  miles  east  of 
Cheraw.  Four  great  rivers  ran  between  Morgan  and 
Greene, — the  Broad,  the  Catawba,  Lynch's  Creek,  and  the 
Pee  Dee.  If  Morgan,  victorious  or  in  defeat,  were  to  at- 
tempt to  reach  Greene,  he  must  first  cross  the  Broad  and 
expect  to  meet  Cornwallis  with  the  main  British  army  as 
he  did  so.  If  Greene  were  to  attempt  to  cross  the  Pee  Dee 
to  meet  Morgan,  Leslie  was  lying  at  Camden  watching  to 
strike  him.  Notwithstanding,  therefore,  the  victory  at 
Cowpens  and  the  complacency  with  which  Greene  had 
surveyed  his  position  on  the  Pee  Dee,  the  American  forces 
were  in  a  most  precarious  condition.  To  unite,  either  wing 
must  in  the  outset  cross  a  great  river  and  meet  a  superior 
force.  On  the  23d  of  January,  a  week  after  the  battle  at 
Cowpens,  and  the  day  upon  which  Marion  and  Lee  appeared 
before  Georgetown,  Greene  received  news  of  Morgan's  vic- 
tory and  at  once  despatched  "  the  glorious  intelligence  " 

90 


IN  THE  BEVOLUTION  91 

to  Marion  and  to  Lee.^  He  made,  however,  no  move  to  join 
Morgan,  or  to  cover  his  retreat  with  his  prisoners.  Five 
days  after  he  was  still  on  the  Pee  Dee,  urging  Marion  to 
cross  the  Santee.^ 

It  was  not  yet  noon  when  the  battle  of  Cowpens  was 
ended.  Morgan,  knowing  of  the  proximity  of  Cornwallis, 
halted  no  longer  on  the  field  of  battle  than  to  refresh  his 
men  and  prisoners,  and  make  the  provision  which  human- 
ity required  of  him.  He  boldly  moved  across  the  Broad 
that  evening,  leaving  Colonel  Pickens  with  a  detachment 
of  his  partisans  to  bury  the  dead,  and  provide  as  far  as 
possible  for  the  wants  and  comforts  of  the  wounded  of  both 
armies.  After  making  such  provision  as  he  could  for  their 
care  and  attendance,  the  wounded  of  both  armies  were  left 
upon  the  field  of  battle  under  a  safeguard  and  a  flag,  and 
the  next  day  Pickens  rejoined  his  commander.  Early  in 
the  morning  Morgan  had  resumed  his  march,  anxiously 
expecting  and  fearing  the  return  of  his  patrols  with  intelli- 
gence that  the  enemy  was  at  hand;  but,  strange  to  say, 
though,  encumbered  with  his  prisoners,  he  was  then  mov- 
ing directly  across  the  enemy's  front,  none  appeared  to 
assail  his  flank  and  arrest  his  progress.  To  his  great  sur- 
prise and  relief  authentic  intelligence  was  received,  not 
only  that  the  enemy  had  not  moved,  but  that  he  showed 
no  intention  to  move  that  day.  Morgan,  however,  still 
pressed  on,  and  reached  the  fords  of  the  Catawba,  which  he 
crossed.  Two  rivers  which  had  separated  him  from  his 
commander-in-chief  had  thus  been  safely  passed. 

While  Leslie  was  leisurely  crossing  the  Catawba  to  join 
Cornwallis,  Morgan  was  at  Gilberto wn  —  the  present  Lincoln- 
ton  in  North  Carolina.  Here  Morgan  detached  the  greater 
part  of  his  militia,  as  he  called  them,  and  a  part  of  Colonel 

1  Greene's  letter  to  Marion,  James's  Life  of  Marion,  Appendix,  18. 

2  General  Huger's  letter  to  Marion,  January  28,  ihid.^  20. 


92  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Washington's  cavalry,  as  a  guard,  with  the  prisoners.  At 
Island  Ford,  on  the  north  fork  of  the  Catawba,  Washing- 
ton left  the  prisoners  with  the  volunteers  under  Pickens, 
and  rejoined  Morgan,  who  remained  between  them  and  the 
enemy.  Major  Hyrne,  the  commissary  of  prisoners,  now 
relieved  Colonel  Pickens  of  his  charge,  and  marched  with 
the  six  hundred  prisoners  to  the  prisoner  camp  established 
at  Charlottesville,  Virginia. 

Upon  the  diversion  of  the  force  sent  under  Leslie  from 
the  invasion  of  Virginia  to  the  reenforcement  of  Cornwallis 
in  South  Carolina,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  despatched  another 
body  to  the  Chesapeake  to  renew  that  movement,  and  the 
advance  of  this  force  under  the  traitor  Arnold  had,  on  the 
4th  of  January,  ascended  the  James  River  and  debarked 
seven  hundred  men  about  twenty-five  miles  below  Rich- 
mond. Cornwallis,  learning  of  this  and  that  a  further 
embarkation  of  troops  destined  for  Virginia  under  General 
Philips  was  about  to  take  place,  determined  to  renew  his 
invasion  of  North  Carolina  to  cooperate  with  this  movement 
against  Virginia.  On  the  19th  of  January,  that  is,  three 
days  after  Tarleton's  defeat  at  Cowpens,  Leslie  having 
formed  a  junction  with  him,  Cornwallis  began  his  march 
northward.  ^ 

1  This  movement  of  Lord  Cornwallis  in  prosecution  of  the  original 
ministerial  plan  was  the  subject  of  bitter  controversy  in  England  after  the 
loss  of  the  colonies.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  attributed  to  it  all  of  the  subse- 
quent disaster  to  the  British  arms.  He  admits  that  such  an  advance  had 
been  part  of  the  original  plan  by  which  the  war  was  to  have  been 
prosecuted  from  South  to  North,  and  that  upon  Lord  Cornwallis's  junc- 
tion with  the  forces  of  Leslie  sent  to  meet  him  in  Virginia  the  objective 
point  was  to  have  been  Baltimore,  and  thence  an  advance  north w-ardly. 
But  Sir  Henry's  contention  was  that,  after  his  reverses  in  South  Carolina 
and  the  failure  of  the  Loyalists  in  North  Carolina  to  rise  in  1780,  as  had 
been  expected,  Lord  Cornwallis  should  have  abandoned  the  campaign  and 
remained  in  South  Carolina  {Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy^  2  volumes, 
compiled  by  B.  F.  Stevens,  London,  1888).     But  whatever  force  there  is 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  93 

Colonel  Lee  states  that  Greene  was  quickly  advised  of 
the  advance  of  the  British  from  Winnsboro ;  indeed,  that  he 
learned  of  this  movement  before  he  learned  of  Morgan's 
victory,  and  that  he  accordingly  issued  preparatory  orders 
for  the  movement  of  his  own  troops.^  He  heard  of  the  vic- 
tory on  the  23d,  for  on  that  day  he  wrote  to  Marion  inform- 
ing him  of  it,  and  requesting  him  to  communicate  the 
intelligence  to  Lee,  but  there  is  no  intimation  in  his  letter  of 
any  movement  on  his  part,  on  the  contrary,  he  left  Lee  to 
continue  his  attack  upon  Georgetown.^  He  writes  again  to 
Marion  on  the  25th,  reiterating  the  agreeable  news  of  the 
defeat  of  Tarleton,  and  urging  an  attack  by  Lee  and  himself 

in  Sir  Henry's  position  must  be  restricted  to  his  lordship's  decision  and 
action  after  his  losses  at  Cowpens,  and  must  not  include  his  previous 
losses  at  King's  Mountain,  etc.,  in  1780,  for  if  these  former  reverses  should 
have  influenced  the  combined  movements.  Sir  Henry  vs^as  himself  as 
much  to  blame  in  the  matter  as  Cornwallis — nay,  more  so,  for  he  v^as 
the  Commander-in-chief  and  should  have  countermanded  the  movement. 
He  was  immediately  informed  of  the  disaster  at  King's  Mountain  by  Lord 
Rawdon,  who  wrote  to  Sir  Henry  on  the  29th  of  October,  during  the  illness 
of  Lord  Cornwallis,  giving  Sir  Henry  a  full  account  of  it  {Clinton- Corn- 
wallis Controversy,  vol.  1, 277).  This  letter  Clinton  received  on  the  5th  of 
December,  and  on  the  13th  replied  to  Lord  Cornwallis,  acknowledging  the 
receipt  of  Lord  Rawdon's  letter,  approving  his  lordship's  call  to  Leslie  to 
join  him,  and  informing  his  lordship  that  he  had  sent  Arnold  with  a 
corps  to  replace  Leslie's,  which  had  gone  to  him  {ihid.,  310).  Cornwallis 
received  this  letter  of  Sir  Henry  on  the  6th  of  January  {ibid.,  315).  Had 
Sir  Henry  then  thought  proper  to  abandon  the  ministerial  plan,  he  should 
have  so  instructed  his  lordship  in  his  letter  of  the  13th.  Unless,  there- 
fore, the  defeat  of  Tarleton  at  Cowpens  should  have  influenced  him, 
Cornwallis  had  no  choice  under  his  existing  instructions  but  to  proceed 
with  the  plans,  as  he  did  on  the  19th.  He  writes  to  Sir  Henry  on  the  18th, 
the  day  before  he  began  his  march,  "  It  is  impossible  to  foresee  all  the 
consequences  that  this  unexpected  and  extraordinary  event  [Tarleton's 
defeat  at  Cowpens]  may  produce,  but  your  Excellency  may  be  assured 
that  nothing  but  the  most  absolute  necessity  shall  induce  me  to  give  up 
the  important  object  of  the  winter's  campaign,"  etc.     {Ibid.,  321.) 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  232. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist,  of  the  Am.  Bev.  (1781-82),  16. 


94  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAKOLINA 

on  Watson  at  Nelson's  Ferry,  saying  nothing  of  his  own 
movements.^  On  the  26th  he  writes  to  Lee  that  he  intended 
to  start  for  Charlotte  to  consult  with  Morgan,  Davidson, 
Sumter,  and  Pickens  in  regard  to  assembling  all  his  force 
and  moving  against  Ninety  Six.  But  on  further  reflection, 
it  is  said,  he  abandoned  these  ideas,  and  determined  to  limit 
his  plans  to  a  junction  of  his  main  body  with  Morgan,  and 
resisting,  if  possible,  Cornwallis's  advance  to  Virginia.^  If, 
as  Colonel  Lee  says,  Greene  received  the  gratifying  intelli- 
gence of  Morgan's  victory  the  day  after  he  heard  of  Corn- 
wallis's advance,  it  was,  therefore,  on  the  22d  that  he  did 
so,  and  yet  it  was  not  until  the  28th  that  he  decided  upon 
his  course  in  consequence,  and  then,  as  his  biographer  says, 
he  committed  what  will  be  deemed  by  many  the  most  im- 
prudent action  of  his  life.  With  only  a  guide,  one  aide,  and 
a  sergeant's  guard  of  cavalry,  he  started  across  the  country 
to  join  the  army  of  General  Morgan  and  aid  him  in  his 
arduous  operations.  The  distance  was  one  hundred  miles 
at  least,  the  country  infested  with  Tories,  and  Camden  not 
far  on  his  left  where  such  a  prize  would  be  liberally  paid 
for.3  This  was  indeed  a  most  extraordinary  step  to  have 
taken  after  six  days  of  hesitation  and  indecision.  Why  he 
should  have  deemed  it  so  necessary  to  abandon  his  main 
army  and  leave  it  under  Huger,  to  join  Morgan  with  his 
detachment,  as  to  warrant  this  mad  ride,  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine.  Before  he  started  he  had  recalled  Lee  and  directed 
General  Isaac  Huger  to  follow  with  the  army  he  had  at 
Cheraw,  and  to  join  Morgan  at  Salisbury.  Huger,  on  the 
29th,  began  his  march,  and  South  Carolina  was  again  aban- 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist,  of  the  Am.  Bev.  (1781-82),  17. 

2  Great  Commanders  Series,  General  Greene  (Greene),  193-194. 

«  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  I,  394.  In  the  Great  Commanders 
Series,  General  Greene.,  it  is  said  that  he  was  accompanied  by  his  aide. 
Major  Burnet,  a  sergeant,  and  three  mounted  militiamen,  194. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  95 

doned  by  the  Continental  army,  to  contend  as  best  she  might 
with  the  British  forces  still  remaining  within  her  border. 

The  position  at  Cheraw  with  which  General  Greene  was 
so  much  pleased  when  he  took  it  did  not  prove  to  have  the 
advantage  which  he  supposed.  It  did  not  compel  Lord 
Cornwallis  to  divide  his  forces.  On  the  contrary,  his  lord- 
ship did  not  hesitate  to  order  Leslie  to  join  him  when  he 
was  ready  to  move,  though  Greene  was  still  at  Cheraw ;  nor 
did  he  hesitate  to  prosecute  his  views  on  Virginia,  and  to 
advance  into  North  Carolina,  though  Greene  was  upon  his 
flank ;  nor  did  Greene  find  it  practicable  to  advance  upon 
Charlestown,  the  goal  of  all  movements  in  the  South. 
Instead  of  all  this,  as  Greene  had  fondly  considered,  he 
found  himself  cut  off  from  Morgan  despite  Morgan's  vic- 
tory, and  forced,  as  he  deemed,  to  take  a  most  desperate 
ride  across  the  country  to  join  Morgan,  leaving  his  army 
under  Huger  to  make  the  best  of  its  way  after  him.  Had 
Cornwallis  advanced  with  promptness  and  despatch  he 
would  completely  have  divided  Greene's  forces,  which  he 
would  have  crushed,  one  after  the  other.  Greene's  es- 
cape was  entirely  the  result  of  his  lordship's  dilatoriness. 
Greene  reached  Morgan  on  the  30th,  and  learned  that  Corn- 
wallis was  only  a  few  miles  away,  across  the  Catawba. 

The  British  forces  in  South  Carolina  on  the  1st  of  Decem- 
ber, 1780,  amounted  to  7384.^  Sir  Henry  Clinton  estimated 
that  Lord  Cornwallis  ought  to  have  had  with  him,  after 
the  battle  of  Cowpens,  3000  men  exclusive  of  cavalry  and 
militia.  ^  The  loss  at  Cowpens  was  784.  Deducting  the 
3784 from  the  British  forces  in  the  State  on  the  1st  of  Decem- 
ber, 1780,  there  remained  3600  men.  But  Lord  Cornwallis 
did  not  take  all  his  army  with  him  when  he  marched  for 
North  Carolina.     He  left  with  Lord  Rawdon,  at  Camden, 

1  Washington's  Writings,  vol.  V,  Appendix,  544. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Oreene,  vol.  II,  4. 


96  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  Sixty-tliird  Regiment  and  Rawdon's  own,  the  Volun- 
teers of  Ireland.  These  Rawdon  estimated  at  700  ;i  but 
Stedman,  the  historian,  places  the  number  at  800. 2  There 
still  remained  therefore,  in  South  Carolina,  a  British  force 
of  at  least  4300  men,  against  which  Sumter  and  Marion, 
alone  with  their  volunteers,  were  left  to  contend. 

There  seems  to  have  been  some  question  upon  whom 
the  command  of  the  British  forces  remaining  in  South 
Carolina  devolved  in  the  absence  of  Lord  Cornwallis. 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Nisbet  Balfour,  the  commandant  at 
Charlestown,  was  the  ranking  officer  in  the  line,  he  being 
lieutenant  colonel  of  the  Twenty-third  Regiment,  known 
as  the  "Welsh  Fusileers,"  of  which  Sir  William  Howe  was 
colonel,  while  Lord  Rawdon,  holding  the  position  on  the 
staff  of  adjutant  general  with  the  rank  of  lieutenant 
colonel,  was  ranked  by  Balfour  in  the  line,  and  was 
colonel  only  of  a  provincial  regiment,  the  Volunteers  of 
Ireland,  which  he  had  raised  in  Philadelphia,  and  as 
such,  it  was  said,  was  subordinate  to  the  youngest  lieu- 
tenant colonel  of  the  line.  But  Cornwallis,  before  he 
left  the  State,  had  intrusted  the  command  of  the  troops 
on  the  frontier  to  Lord  Rawdon,  limiting  Colonel  Balfour's 
command  to  the  country  within  the  Santee,  Congaree, 
and   Saluda   rivers.^      This  arrangement   was   not  at  all 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  Appendix,  615. 

2  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  355. 

3  Letter  of  Marquis  of  Hastings,  formerly  Lord  Rawdon,  written  July 
23,  1813,  appendix  to  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  613. 

The  comparative  rank  of  Lord  Rawdon  and  Colonel  Balfour  was  a 
matter  about  which  there  was  question,  and  one  which  we  shall  see 
assuming  considerable  importance  in  the  case  of  the  execution  of  Colonel 
Isaac  Hayne  and  of  their  respective  responsibility  therefor.  The  facts 
appear  to  be  that  Lord  Rawdon  was  a  lieutenant  colonel  on  the  staff  of 
the  British  army,  and  as  such  was  adjutant  general  to  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  ;  but  desiring  to  serve  in  the  line,  he  had  raised  in  Philadelphia  a 
provincial  regiment,  the  "  Volunteers  of  Ireland,"  of  which  he  was  colonel. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  97 

satisfactory  to  Lord  Rawdon,  who  complained  that  he 
was  left  to  defend  Camden,  a  position  which  he  had 
always  reprobated  as  being  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
river  and  covering  nothing,  with  but  seven  hundred  men. 
He  complained  that  his  only  concern  with  the  interior 
posts  of  Motte's  House,  Granby,  and  Ninety  Six  was  the 
necessity  he  was  under  of  subordinating  his  movements 
to  their  protection,  while  he  could  draw  no  reenforcements 
from  them  for  his  own,  or  even  for  the  protection  of 
his  communications,  without  the  leave  of  Colonel  Balfour, 
between  whom  and  himself  there  was  an  estrangement. 
Sir  Henry  Clinton,  with  whom  Balfour  was  no  favorite, 
in  order  to  assure  Lord  Rawdon  the  command,  subse- 
quently promoted  him  to  the  rank  of  brigadier  general, 
but  the  commission,  it  is  said,  did  not  arrive  until  Lord 
Rawdon  had  left  the  field  and  embarked  for  England. ^ 

Supposing  the  commission  incompatible  with  that  on  the  staff,  he  had 
tendered  his  resignation  of  the  commission  of  lieutenant  colonel.  But  his 
resignation  was  not  accepted.  Lord  George  Germain,  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  Colonies,  writing  to  Sir  Henry  Clinton  July  5,  1780,  says  :  "The 
King  is  fully  sensible  of  his  lordship's  merits,  and  of  the  great  advantage 
which  the  corps  under  his  command  has  derived  from  his  lordship's  at- 
tention to  it ;  but  his  Majesty  commands  me  to  signify  to  you  his  royal 
pleasure  that  you  do  immediately  acquaint  his  lordship  that  he  still  re- 
tains his  rank  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  in  the  army." — Clinton- Cornwallis 
Controversy^  vol.  I,  230.  Lord  Cornwallis  certainly  regarded  Rawdon  as 
ranking  Balfour.  He  writes  to  Lord  George  Germain  on  August  20,  1780, 
"  I  set  out  on  the  21st  of  June  for  Charlestown,  leaving  the  command  of  the 
troops  on  the  frontier  to  Lord  Rawdon,  who  was,  after  Brigadier-General 
Patterson,  the  commandant  of  Charlestown,  the  next  officer  in  rank  to  me  in 
the  province.'''' — Ibid.,  244.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Balfour  had  not,  however 
arrived  in  the  province  on  the  21st  of  June  ;  but  in  another  letter  from 
Cornwallis  to  Germain  in  which  Colonel  Balfour's  arrival  is  mentioned, 
Cornwallis  writes,  "  I  likewise  think  it  highly  proper  that  as  Lord 
Rawdon  is  acting  with  and  commanding  all  these  officers,  he  should  be 
allowed  the  same  allowance,"  to  wit,  the  pay  of  a  brigadier  general. — 
Ibid.,  240. 

^  Letter  of  Marquis  of  Hastings,  supra. 

VOL.  IV.  —  H 


98  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

While  General  Greene,  with  the  Continental  troops, 
had  abandoned  South  Carolina  to  the  domination  of  the 
British  forces  under  Balfour  and  Rawdon,  Judge  John- 
son claims  for  him  the  conception  of  the  bold  operations 
undertaken  by  Sumter  and  Marion  in  his  absence ;  for 
these  gallant  leaders  did  not  hesitate,  with  their  volunteer 
bands,  at  once  to  assume  the  offensive  in  the  face  of  the 
overwhelming  force  of  the  enemy  remaining  in  the  State. 
General  Greene  had  certainly  suggested  to  Marion  an 
attack  upon  the  British  post  at  Nelson's  Ferry  before  the 
19th  of  January,  for  he  closes  a  letter  on  that  day, 
"  I  wish  your  answer  respecting  the  practicability  of 
surprising  the  party  at  Nelson's ;  the  route,  and  force  you 
will  be  able  to  detach."  ^  Again,  on  the  23d,  he  wrote 
to  Marion:  "I  wish  to  have  your  opinion  of  the  practi- 
cability of  crossing  the  Santee  with  a  party  of  three  or 
four  hundred  horse,  and  whether  they  would  be  much 
exposed  by  being  in  the  rear  of  the  enemy;  also 
whether  the  party  could  not  make  good  their  retreat 
if  it  should  be  necessary,  and  join  our  people  towards 
Ninety  Six.  If  the  thing  is  practicable,  can  your  people 
be  engaged  to  perform  the  service  ? "  ^  But  in  a  letter 
of  the  3d  of  February,  he  wrote  to  Sumter  from  North 
Carolina:  ''/  agree  with  you  in  opinion  that  if  proper 
measures  are  taken,  the  enemy  may  be  made  apprehensive 
of  their  rear.  For  this  purpose  I  have  desired  General 
Marion  to  cross  the  Santee  if  possible,  and  in  order  to 
pave  the  way  for  this  service  I  desired  Lieutenant- Colonel 
Lee  to  surprise  Georgetown,  that  the  militia  be  left  more 
at  liberty  to  cross  the  river."  ^    This  rather  implies  that 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion^  Appendix,  16. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  361. 

»  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  362  ;  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City 
of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  80. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  99 

the  suggestion  was  Sumter's.  It  certainly  indicates  that 
it  was  as  much  Sumter's  scheme  as  his  own.  The  order 
was  extended  by  General  Huger.  On  the  28th  of  January 
this  officer,  before  marching  to  join  Greene,  wrote  to 
Marion:  "General  Greene  wishes  that  you  will  attempt 
to  cross  the  Santee,  and  if  possible  reach  some  of  the 
enemy's  magazines,  and  destroy  them.  I  am  persuaded 
you  will  not  leave  any  practicable  measure  unattempted 
to  effect  this  business.  The  execution  is  left  entirely 
to  your  judgment  and  address."  ^  But  whether  this  move 
was  first  suggested  by  Greene  or  Sumter,  the  order 
for  it  had  been  anticipated  by  the  action  of  Marion  him- 
self. Marion,  who  was  then  at  Cordes's  plantation  one 
hundred  miles  distant,  on  the  29th,2  that  is,  a  day  at 
least  before  the  letter  could  possibly  have  reached  him, 
ordered  Captain  John  Postell  to  cross  the  Santee  with 
twenty-five  men,  and  make  a  forced  march  to  Wadboo 
bridge,  which  crosses  a  prong  of  the  western  branch  of 
Cooper  River,  known  as  the  Fair  Forest  Swamp,  about 
twenty-five  miles  from  Charlestown,  and  there  to  burn  all 
the  stores  of  every  kind.  "  It  is  possible,"  Marion  wrote 
to  Postell,  "  you  will  find  a  small  guard  there,  which  you 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  Appendix,  20. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  20,  Appendix,  91.  Marion  appears  at  this 
time  to  have  had  what  were  called  three  regiments.  Of  these  Peter 
Horry  was  colonel  of  one,  with  William  Benison  as  major,  and  John 
Baxter,  John  Postell,  Daniel  Conyers,  and  James  McCauley,  captains. 
Adam  McDonald  was  colonel  of  another,  but  then  being  a  prisoner,  the 
regiment  was  commanded  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Hugh  Horry.  A  third 
regiment  was  commanded  by  Colonel  John  Ervin,  who  resigned  and  was 
succeeded  by  Captain  John  Baxter.  Captain  William  McCottry  com- 
manded a  company  of  riflemen^  but  whether  attached  to  one  of  these 
regiments  or  as  an  independent  command  does  not  appear.  The  following 
list  of  other  of  Marion's  oflScers  is  compiled  from  those  mentioned  from 
time  to  time  in  James's  Life  of  Marion  :  Colonels  James  Postell,  William 
Harden,  and  Hezekiah  Maham,   Majors  John  James  and    Alexander 


100  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

may  surprise,  but  bring  no  prisoners  with  you.  You  will 
.  .  .  return  the  same  way,  and  recross  the  river  at  the 
same  place,  which  must  be  done  before  daylight  the  next 
morning.  After  effecting  my  purpose  at  Wadboo  it  will 
not  be  out  of  your  way  to  come  by  Monck's  Corner,  and 
destroy  any  stores  or  wagons  you  may  find  there."  ^  This 
order  gave  Captain  Postell  but  twenty-five  men,  but  it 
appears  that  he  took  thirty-eight  with  him.  Colonel 
James  Postell  was  at  the  same  time  despatched  with  about 
an  equal  number.  Colonel  Postell  burnt  a  great  quantity 
of  valuable  stores  at  Manigault's  Ferry,  and  Captain  Postell 
a  great  many  more  in  its  vicinity.  Thence  the  latter 
posted  to  Keithfield,  near  Monck's  Corner,  and  burnt 
fourteen  wagons  loaded  with  soldier's  clothing,  baggage, 
and  other  valuable  stores,  and  took  prisoner  about  forty 
British  regulars,  without  losing  a  man.  The  taking  of 
these  prisoners,  though  against  Marion's  orders,  appears 
to  have  been  approved,  for  General  Greene  extends  to 
the  Postells  his  particular  thanks  for  the  spirit  and 
address  with  which  they  had  executed  Marion's  orders 
over  the  San  tee.  To  the  Postells  it  was  said  nothing 
appeared  difficult.'^ 

As  the  navigation  of  the  Wateree  did  not  permit  the 
transportation  of  supplies,  the  British  were  obliged  to  have 
their  stores  of  rum,  salt,  ammunition,  and  clothing  sent 
overland  across  from  Nelson's  Ferry  to  Camden.  Marion 
had  in  the  last  summer  shown  that  Nelson's  Ferry  was  not 
beyond  his  reach,  and  the  Postells,  under  his  orders,  had  now 

Swinton,  Captains  John  T.  Greene,  Thomas  Waties,  Gavin  Witherspoon, 

Thomas  Potts, Irby,  John  Simons  (killed  at  Quimby),  William  All- 

ston,  Samuel  Cooper,  William  Capers,  G.  Sinclair  Capers,  John  Futhey, 

■  Bennett,  William  Clay  Snipes,  John  Carraway  Smith,  Lieutenant 

Smizer. 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion^  Appendix,  20. 

2  Ibid.,  91,  Appendix,  20. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  101 

reached  Monck's  Corner.  So  that  the  transportation  of 
stores  was  now  threatened  along  the  whole  road  from  the 
Cooper  to  the  Santee,  and  to  the  Wateree.  To  protect 
the  route  the  British  had  established  a  line  of  posts.  The 
first  of  these  was  at  Biggin's  Bridge  over  the  Cooper,  just 
above  Monck's  Corner;  the  next  at  Nelson's  Ferry;  then 
one  at  Wright's  Bluff,  on  Scott's  Lake,  about  ten  miles 
above  Nelson's  Ferry;  another  at  Thomson's  plantation, 
on  the  Congaree,  protecting  the  roads  to  Mc Cord's  and  to 
Granby  on  the  Congaree ;  and  still  another  at  the  latter 
place,  which  was  also  known  as  Fridig's  or  Friday's  Ferry. 
These  lines  of  posts  thus  protected  the  road  either  to  Cam- 
den or  Ninety  Six.  Besides  the  additional  security  thus 
afforded,  the  supplies  were  always  attended  by  escorts,  which, 
since  the  enterprises  of  the  two  Postells,  seldom  consisted 
of  less  than  three  hundred  or  four  hundred  men.  But  not 
even  with  these  precautions  were  these  lines  secure. 

About  the  middle  of  February  Major  McLeroth,i  of  the 
Sixty-fourth  Regiment  of  the  British  army,  was  marching 
from  Nelson's  Ferry  at  the  head  of  one  of  these  escorts, 
when  Marion,  with  about  an  equal  number  of  mounted 
men,  assailed  him  near  Halfway  Swamp,  eighteen  or 
twenty  miles  from  Nelson's  Ferry,  in  what  is  now  Clar- 
endon County.  Marion  at  first  cut  off  in  succession  two 
pickets  in  McLeroth's  rear,  then,  wheeling  round  his  main 
body,  attacked  him  in  flank  and  front.  As  McLeroth  had 
no  cavalry,  his  situation  became  perilous  in  the  extreme  ; 
but  by  a  rapid  march,  with  constant  skirmishing,  he  gained 
a  field  upon  the  road  about  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the 
swamp,  which  was  open,  but  enclosed  with  a  fence.  Here 
he  posted  himself  on  the  west  of  the  road  within  the  en- 

1  In  his  Life  of  Marion  James  spells  the  name  of  this  officer,  Mcllwrath 
(p.  91)  ;  we  follow  the  spelling  found  in  Tarleton's  Campaigns^  p.  153, 
and  in  the  Army  List,  Almanac,  1780. 


102  HISTOKY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

closure.  On  the  east,  skirting  the  road,  there  was  a  large 
cypress  swamp  stretching  towards  Halfway  Swamp,  on  the 
verge  of  which  Marion  took  position. 

In  this  situation  of  the  parties  a  most  curious  and  ro- 
mantic incident  took  place.  Major  McLeroth  sent  a  flag 
to  Marion,  reproaching  him  with  shooting  his  pickets  con- 
trary, as  he  alleged,  to  all  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare,  and 
defying  him  to  combat  in  the  open  field.  Marion  replied 
that  the  practice  of  the  British  in  burning  the  houses  of  all 
who  would  not  submit  and  join  them  was  more  indefensi- 
ble than  that  of  shooting  pickets,  and  that  as  long  as  they 
persisted  in  the  one  he  would  persevere  in  the  other. 
That  as  to  his  defiance,  he  considered  it  that  of  a  man  in 
desperate  circumstances;  but  if  he  wished  to  witness  a 
combat  between  twenty  picked  men  on  each  side  he  was 
ready  to  gratify  him.  Strange  to  say,  this  extraordinary 
proposition  of  Marion  was  accepted  by  McLeroth,^  and  a 
place  for  the  combat,  near  an  oak  tree  which  stood  for 
many  years  afterwards,  agreed  upon.  Accordingly  Mar- 
ion appointed  Major  John  Vanderhorst,  then  a  supernu- 
merary officer,  to  take  command  of  this  band,  and  Captain 
Samuel  Price  to  be  second  in  command.  The  names  of 
the  men  were  written  on  slips  of  paper  and  presented  to 
them  individually.  The  first  chosen  was  Gavin  Wither- 
spoon,  who  promptly  accepted,  and  no  one  else  who  was 
chosen  refused.     Major  Vanderhorst  formed  his  party  in 

1  The  character  of  Major  McLeroth,  says  James,  has  been  constantly 
represented  by  the  inhabitants  of  this  State  among  whom  he  passed  as  the 
most  humane  of  all  the  oflBcers  of  the  British  army.  To  those  in  their 
power  even  forbearance  was  at  that  time  a  virtue,  but  his  virtues  were 
active.  It  has  been  currently  reported,  adds  James,  that  he  carried  his 
dislike  of  house-burning  so  far  that  he  neglected  to  carry  into  effect  the 
orders  of  his  Commander-in-chief  on  that  point  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
gain  his  ill  will  and  that  of  many  other  British  officers.  James's  Life  of 
Marion,  97-98. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  103 

single  file  and  proceeded  with  them  to  the  fence,  where 
they  were  addressed  by  Marion.  "My  brave  soldiers,"  he 
said,  "you  are  twenty  men  picked  this  day  out  of  my 
whole  brigade.  I  know  you  all  and  have  often  witnessed 
your  bravery.  In  the  name  of  your  country  I  call  upon 
you  once  more  to  show  it.  My  confidence  in  you  is  great, 
and  I  am  sure  it  will  not  be  disappointed.  Fight  like  men, 
as  you  have  always  done,  and  you  are  sure  of  victory." 
This  short  speech,  we  are  told,  was  received  with  applause, 
and  the  party  under  Vanderhorst  advanced  towards  the 
oak.  The  British  party  had  also  formed  in  like  order  in 
front  of  the  tree.  But  just  as  they  were  about  to  engage, 
an  officer  was  seen  to  advance  swiftly  towards  the  oak, 
when  the  British  shouldered  their  muskets  and  retreated 
with  quick  steps  towards  the  main  body.  Vanderhorst 
and  his  men  gave  three  huzzas,  but  did  not  fire.  James, 
who  relates  this  story,  observes  that  thus  a  British  officer 
was  met  on  his  own  boasted  ground  and  proved  recreant ; 
but  it  is  more  probable  that  McLeroth,  finding  himself  at 
such  disadvantage  with  Marion's  mounted  men,  skilfully 
availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  for  delay,  and  accepted 
the  challenge  without  any  intention  of  meeting  it,  but 
merely  in  order  to  gain  time.^ 

The  next  morning,  McLeroth  abandoned  his  heavy 
baggage,  left  his  fires  burning,  and  retired  silently  from 
the  ground,  along  the  river  road,  towards  Singleton's  Mill, 
distant  ten  miles.     Near  day  Marion  discovered  his  move- 

1  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novel,  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth^  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, is  based  upon  the  story  of  two  powerful  clans  having  deputed  each 
twenty  champions  to  fight  out  a  quarrel  of  old  standing  in  the  presence  of 
King  Robert  III,  his  brother  the  Duke  of  Albany,  and  the  whole  court  of 
Scotland  at  Perth  in  the  year  of  grace  1390.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  story 
had  not  yet  been  published,  but  Major  McLeroth,  a  Scotchman,  as  his 
name  suggests,  was  probably  familiar  with  this  legend,  and  availing  him- 
self of  it  accepted  Marion's  proposition  to  amuse  him  while  he  arranged 
for  his  escape. 


104  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

ment,  and  detached  Colonel  Hugh  Horry,  with  one  hun- 
dred men,  to  intercept  him  before  he  could  reach  the  mill. 
The  colonel  made  all  possible  speed,  but,  finding  he  could 
not  overtake  McLeroth  with  his  whole  party,  despatched 
a  iJSiYty^  under  Major  James,  on  the  swiftest  horses,  to 
cross  the  mill  pond  above,  and  take  possession  of  Single- 
ton's houses,  which  stood  on  a  high  hill  commanding  a 
narrow  defile,  on  the  road  between  the  hill  and  the 
Wateree  swamp.  Major  James  reached  the  houses  as  the 
British  advanced  to  the  foot  of  the  hill,  but  found  Single- 
ton's family  down  with  the  small-pox.  This  disease  was 
more  dreaded  than  the  enemy.  James  therefore  contented 
himself  with  giving  them  a  fire,  by  which  a  British  captain 
was  killed,  and  then  retired.  As  McLeroth  was  now  in  a 
strong  position,  Marion  pursued  him  no  farther.^ 

Marion,  in  this  movement,  had  been  operating  from  his 
fastness  at  Snow  Island,  keeping  open  his  communication 
with  that  retreat.  Sumter,  now  partially  recovered  from 
his  wound  but  still  greatly  suffering,  took  the  field  for 
bolder  enterprises. 

On  the  30th  of  January,  General  Greene  writes  to 
Sumter  from  Sherard's  Ferry,  on  the  Catawba,  in  North 
Carolina:  "I  have  the  pleasure  to  hear,  by  General 
Morgan,  that  you  are  almost  well  enough  to  take  the 
field.  Nothing  will  afford  me  greater  satisfaction  than  to 
see  you  at  the  head  of  the  militia  again ;  and  I  can  assure 
you  I  shall  take  a  pleasure  in  giving  you  every  opportunity 
to  exercise  that  talent  of  enterprise  which  has  already 
rendered  you  the  terror  of  your  enemies  and  the  idol  of 
your  friends."  ^  Again,  on  the  3d  of  February,  he  writes, 
endeavoring  to  allay  Sumter's  jealousy  of  Morgan,  assur- 
ing him  that,  when  he  shall  be  able  to  take  the  field  and 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  94-97. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  79. 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  105 

embody  his  militia,  he  shall  have  the  command  of  the 
whole,  whether  employed  in  South  Carolina  or  with  the 
Continentals.^  General  Greene  appears  to  have  wished 
Sumter  to  operate  in  the  rear  of  the  British  army  under 
Cornwallis.  He  gave,  however,  no  specific  directions  to 
him  to  do  so.  On  the  9th  of  February  he  writes  to  Sumter, 
acknowledging  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from  him  of  the  7th,2 
in  which  it  appears  that  Sumter  had  reported  himself  in 
the  field,  and  saying :  — 

"  There  are  few  or  no  militia  with  us,  nor  are  there  many  in  the 
enemy's  rear.  I  heard  by  several  people  that  you  were  with  the 
latter,  which  gave  me  great  pleasure ;  but  I  find  I  was  misinformed. 
Before  I  heard  of  your  being  out  I  had  sent  General  Pickens  to  take 
the  command  in  the  rear.  His  character  and  influence  I  hope  will 
be  useful."  ^ 

But  Sumter  had  other  plans.  General  Greene  had 
scarcely  exaggerated  Sumter's  influence  when  he  wrote 
that  he  was  the  terror  of  his  enemies  and  the  idol  of  his 
friends,  for  Cornwallis  himself,  in  a  letter  to  Tarleton, 
declared,  "Sumter's  corps  has  been  our  greatest  plague 
in  this  State."  *  At  his  call  only  would  the  heroes  of 
Hanging  Rock,  King's  Mountain,  and  Blackstock  come 
out.  Lacey,  Taylor,  and  his  other  leaders  now  at  once 
joined  him.  Collecting  his  whole  force  in  his  old  camping 
ground,  the  Waxhaws,  he  marched  for  Fort  Granby  on  the 
Congaree,  where  he  arrived  on  the  19th  of  February.  This 
was  a  stockade  work  on  the  west  side  of  the  Congaree,  three 
miles  below  the  junction  of  the  Broad  and  the  Saluda  rivers, 
and  a  half  mile  below  the  present  city  of  Columbia  on  the 
opposite  bank.     It  was  defended  by  about  three  hundred 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  79. 

2  This  letter  is  not  found  in  the  Nightingale  collection. 

8  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  82. 
*  Tarleton' s  Campaigns,  203. 


106  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

men,  under  the  command  of  Major  Maxwell.  The  same 
ruse  de  guerre  which  had  twice  before  been  successfully 
used  was  again  resorted  to,  —  Quaker  guns  of  logs  and 
tobacco  hogsheads  were  mounted  and  trained  upon  the 
works,  but  this  time  without  effect.^  An  attack  was 
made,  and  kept  up  for  two  days ;  and  as  all  supplies  were 
cut  off,  the  place  must  have  been  taken  had  not  Lord 
Rawdon  appeared  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river  early 
on  the  third  day.  His  lordship's  arrival  was  not  unex- 
pected.    On  the  20th,  Sumter  writes  to  Marion:  — 

"Hurry  of  business  obliges  me  to  be  laconic.  I  arrived  at  this 
place  yesterday  morning  about  four  o'clock.  Shortly  after  attacked 
the  fort,  with  which  I  have  been  ever  since  engaged.  Everything 
hitherto  favorable,  and  have  no  doubt  but  I  shall  succeed  if  not 
interrupted  by  Lord  Rawdon,  who,  I  know,  will  strip  his  post  as  bare 
of  men  as  possible  to  spare ;  to  obviate  which,  as  far  as  possible,  may 
be  in  your  power,  it  is  my  wish  that  you  would  be  pleased  to  move 
in  such  a  direction  as  to  attract  his  attention  and  thereby  prevent  his 
designs.  Timely  assistance  in  this  way  portends  much  good  to  this 
State.  ...  If  you  can  with  propriety  advance  southwardly  so  as 
to  cooperate  or  correspond  with  me  it  might  have  the  best  of  con- 
sequences." 2 

Marion  did  not,  however,  receive  this  letter  in  time, 
and  Lord  Rawdon,  having  learned  of  Sumter's  bold  move, 
had,  as  Sumter  had  anticipated,  marched  at  once  from 
Camden  with  all  his  force ;  but  his  appearance  did  not 
induce  Sumter  to  abandon  the  enterprise  until  he  had  de- 
stroyed the  British  magazines  and  supplies.  This  having 
been  accomplished  on  the  third  day  (21st  of  February), 
in  the  presence  of  Lord  Rawdon's  party,  he  moved  away 
that  niglit.3  There  is  no  statement  of  the  casualties  on 
either  side  in  this  affair. 

1  Sumter  MSS. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-83),  23. 

»  Ramsay's  Bevolntion  in  So.  Ca.^  vol.  II,  226  ;  Moultrie's  Memoirs, 
vol.  II,  273. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  107 

Rawdon  had  supposed  that  Sumter,  upon  his  approach, 
would  have  retreated  up  the  west  bank  of  the  Congaree, 
and  so  on  towards  the  upper  part  of  the  State,  and  accord- 
ingly he  had  seized  all  the  passes  above.  But  in  this 
supposition  he  was  mistaken.  Sumter  had  still  other 
designs.  Raising  the  siege  of  Granby,  he  marched  with 
the  utmost  celerity  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  arrived 
the  next  morning,  the  22d  of  February,  before  the  British 
post  at  Colonel  Thomson's  plantation,  thirty-five  miles 
from  Granby.  This  post  was  near  the  site  of  Fort  Motte,  in 
what  is  now  Orangeburg  County,  It  was  a  stockade  which 
was  formed  around  Colonel  Thomson's  house,  the  outhouses 
forming  a  part  of  the  defences.  The  troops  advanced 
through  an  open  field,  under  a  severe  fire,  and  reached  a 
part  of  the  works.  The  enemy  defended  themselves  with 
great  bravery.  The  houses  were  set  on  fire  by  the  Ameri- 
cans, but  the  defenders  succeeded  in  extinguishing  the 
flames  and  resisting  every  assault.  The  assault  was  given 
up  in  about  half  an  hour,  but  the  investment  was  contin- 
ued. Sumter  was  encamped  at  Manigault's  Ferry,  two 
miles  below  Thomson's,  refreshing  a  part  of  his  troops, 
while  a  strong  detachment  maintained  the  investment  of 
the  post.  He  had  also  sent  out  several  smaller  detachments 
for  various  purposes,  so  that  he  had  with  him  not  more  than 
one  hundred  men.  In  this  condition,  early  the  next  day,  the 
23d,  he  received  information  of  the  approach  of  a  consider- 
able body  of  troops,  with  a  number  of  wagons.  The  enemy 
advanced  so  rapidly  that  he  had  only  time  to  form  for  their 
reception  on  a  well-chosen  piece  of  ground  half  a  mile 
below  his  encampment.  The  British,  upwards  of  eighty  in 
number,  forming  a  compact  line,  advanced  with  a  daring 
front,  affecting  a  contempt  for  the  troops  formed  to  oppose 
them.  The  ground  was  open.  Both  parties  seemed  assured 
of  victory.    The  contest  was  short  and  decisive.    The  Brit- 


108  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ish  were  outflanked  and  defeated.  They  lost  thirteen  killed 
and  sixty-six  taken  prisoners,  and  twenty  wagons  with 
clothing,  supplies,  and  arms  intended  for  Lord  Rawdon's 
army.  To  secure  a  prize  so  seasonable  to  the  wants  of  the 
captors  became  an  object  of  the  greatest  importance.  It 
happened  that  the  San  tee  was  overflowed  and  impassable 
for  the  wagons.  But  Sumter  had  collected  and  secured 
all  the  boats  at  Fort  Granby,  and  also  at  Thomson's.  On 
board  these  were  placed  the  captured  stores,  under  a  deter- 
mined officer,  who  was  ordered  to  fall  down  the  river  to  a 
point  where  Sumter  would  meet  him  with  the  troops.  These 
dispositions  had  not  long  been  completed  when,  on  the  day 
following,  the  24th,  at  about  three  o'clock.  Lord  Rawdon 
appeared,  coming  to  the  relief  of  the  post  at  Thomson's. 
Sumter,  informed  of  his  approach,  had  all  his  parties  called 
in  and  his  troops  formed  in  order  of  battle,  expecting  only 
to  meet  the  light  troops  of  his  lordship,  but  when  he  saw 
his  whole  army  was  with  him,  he  moved  off  leisurely  in  the 
presence  of  Rawdon,  who  did  not  attempt  pursuit,  and  has- 
tened to  meet  his  little  flotilla  at  the  point  where  he  proposed 
crossing  the  river.  The  point  selected  for  this  purpose 
was  some  distance  above  Wright's  Bluff,  on  the  Santee, 
about  ten  miles  above  Nelson's  Ferry,  where  the  British 
had  a  post  on  the  east  side  of  the  river  commanding  it. 
Unhappily  the  fatality  which  so  often  pursued  Sumter's 
most  brilliant  movements  again  overtook  him.  By  the 
treachery  of  the  pilot,  the  boats  were  permitted  to  drop 
below  the  proposed  point,  within  range  of  the  guns  of  the 
British  post,  and  the  stores  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands. 
The  guard  escaped  and  rejoined  Sumter.  Great  as  was 
the  loss  of  the  stores,  that  of  the  boats  was  still  greater. 
Without  them  the  passage  of  the  river  and  the  swamps  on 
the  low  ground  was  extremely  difficult.  It  was,  however, 
determined  on,  and  effected  by  the  aid  of  such  canoes  as 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  109 

could  be  collected,  and  the  post  at  Wright's  Bluff,  known  as 
Fort  Watson,  was  attacked  to  regain  the  stores.  To  recover 
the  ample  supply  of  arms  and  clothing  which  had  been 
captured  and  so  treacherously  lost  to  him,  which  would 
have  relieved  so  many  of  the  wants  of  his  men,  induced 
Sumter  to  hazard  all  on  one  effort.  The  attack  was  begun 
at  twelve  o'clock,  on  the  27th  of  February,  by  a  direct 
assault.  The  post  had  been  reenforced  but  a  few  hours 
before  by  the  arrival  of  Colonel  Watson  with  a  detachment 
of  four  hundred  provincial  light  infantry.  The  Americans 
were  received  with  a  tremendous  fire,  which  they  sustained 
for  some  time,  but  at  length  were  obliged  to  give  way, 
with  considerable  loss.  The  British  accounts  claimed  that 
eighteen  were  killed,  and  some  prisoners  and  many  horses 
taken.  ^ 

Upon  this  repulse  Sumter  led  his  troops  to  a  secure  po- 
sition within  five  or  six  miles  of  the  fort,  where  his  wounded 
were  attended  to.  Thence  he  moved  to  the  High  Hills  of 
San  tee  and  rested.  In  response  to  his  letter  of  the  20th, 
Marion  had,  on  the  26th,  written  to  Sumter  reporting  his 
progress  towards  him ;  but  while  at  the  camp  on  the  High 
Hills  of  Santee^  Sumter  received,  on  the  4th  of  March, 
another  letter,  dated  the  2d,  from  which  it  appeared  that 

1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  March  3,  1781. 

2  "  The  High  Hills  of  San  tee  are  a  long,  irregular  chain  of  sand  hills  on 
the  left  bank  of  the  Wateree,  near  twenty  miles  north  of  its  junction  with 
the  Congaree,  and  some  ninety  miles  northwesterly  of  Charleston.  They 
are  huge  masses  of  sand  and  clay  and  gravel,  rising  two  hundred  feet 
above  the  river  banks,  twenty-four  miles  long,  varying  in  breadth  from 
five  miles  to  one.  Though  directly  above  the  noxious  river,  the  air  on 
them  is  healthy  and  the  water  pure,  making  an  oasis  in  the  wide  tract  of 
miasma  and  fever  in  which  the  army  had  been  operating.  Both  officers 
and  men  felt  the  vigor  return  as  soon  as  they  inhaled  the  pure  breezes." 
—  Greene's  Life  of  Oreene,  vol.  Ill,  335.  These  hills  were  from  time  to 
time  in  occupation  of  both  armies,  British  and  American.  Upon  them  we 
shall  see  Greene  in  his  Camp  of  Repose  later  on  in  the  summer. 


110  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Marion  was  still  far  out  of  the  way  of  meeting  him.     Sum- 
ter was  much  disappointed,  and  wrote  :  ^  — 

"  I  made  no  doubt  but  your  route  to  me  would  be  by  the  way  of 
King's  Tree  or  the  Ferry,  and  after  receiving  yours  of  the  28th  ultimo, 
informing  me  what  the  number  of  your  men  were,  I  found  you  to  be 
very  weak  and  the  enemy  near  at  hand  in  force.  This  determined 
me  to  move  on  to  meet  you,  to  concert  measures  for  our  further  oper- 
ations, which  is  still  absolutely  necessary.  I  shall  therefore  remain  at 
or  near  this  place  for  that  purpose,  and  beg  that  you  may  come  this 
way  with  all  possible  speed ;  if  not  convenient  with  all  your  men  to 
facilitate  an  interview,  please  come  with  a  few.  My  horses  are  so 
worn  out  that  I  can  scarce  move  at  all,  and  officers  and  men  are  quite 
discouraged,  finding  no  force  in  these  parts,  not  even  men  enough  to 
join  to  guide  me  through  the  country.  But  notwithstanding  little 
may  be  done  now,  yet  much  good  might  be  expected  to  result  here- 
after from  a  personal  consultation,  which  I  hope  to  have  the  favor  of 
by  to-morrow  night,"  etc. 

But  Marion  did  not  come.  The  British,  indeed,  were  lay- 
ing meshes  for  his  capture,  and,  no  doubt,  he  was  busy 
avoiding  them.  Still,  it  is  strange  that,  within  a  day's  jour- 
ney of  Sumter,  he  does  not  appear  to  have  made  any  re- 
sponse to  the  earnest  appeal  for  a  conference,  or  even  to 
have  communicated  to  Sumter  his  own  difficulties.  After 
waiting  in  vain  for  Marion  a  day  or  two,  finding  his  men 
somewhat  rested  and  refreshed,  Sumter  began  a  retreat 
from  the  High  Hills  of  Santee  to  the  Waxhaws  by  way 
of  Black  River,  leaving  Camden  about  twenty  miles  to 
the  left.  On  the  6th  of  March,  while  on  this  march,  he 
was  intercepted  by  a  considerable  body  of  British  troops 
under  Major  Fraser  on  Lynch's  Creek,  and  a  sharp  con- 
flict ensued  in  which  neither  party  gained  a  decided 
advantage.  The  British  claimed  a  victory,  but  Sumter's 
retreat  was  not  impeded,  to  effect  which  was  the  object 
of  the  British  movement.    By  the  enemy's  account  Sumter 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  27,  28. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  111 

lost  ten  killed  and  about  fifty  wounded.^  Ramsay  claims 
that  the  British  lost  twenty  killed  and  were  obliged  to 
retreat.  2 

General  Sumter  having  fallen  back  to  the  Waxhaws, 
Lord  Rawdon  now  determined  upon  a  concerted  move 
to  crush  Marion.  For  this  purpose  Colonel  Watson,  with 
his  own  regiment  and  Harrison's  regiment  of  Tories,^ 
amounting  in  the  whole  to  more  than  five  hundred  men, 
was  ordered  to  march  from  Nelson's  Ferry  (Fort  "Watson) 
down  the  Santee  towards  Snow  Island;  and  soon  after 

1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  March  14,  1781. 

2  Ramsay's  Revolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  226.  So  engrossed  have 
historians  and  romancers  been  with  Marion's  brilliant  performances  that 
they  have  been  oblivious  to  Sumter's.  Thus  we  find  one  of  our  own 
historians  stating  that,  "during  the  absence  of  Greene  from  South 
Carolina,  Marion  was  the  only  force  in  active  operation  against  the 
British."  (Simms's  Life  of  Marion,  205).  Sumter's  equally  brilliant 
operations  at  this  time  are  entirely  ignored.  Judge  Johnson,  in  his  Life 
of  Greene,  speaks  of  Sumter's  force  as  "  a  body  of  about  two  hundred  and 
fifty  North  Carolinians  "  (vol.  II,  31),  but  this  is  a  mistake.  The  account 
of  these  operations  here  given  is  taken  from  the  Sumter  manuscript  which 
states  that  "when  Sumter  had  nearly  recovered  from  his  wound,  finding 
that  Lord  Cornwallis  had  left  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  he  collected  his 
whole  force  in  the  Waxhaws  and  marched  for  the  lower  country."  His 
force  was  certainly  composed  of  South  Carolina  volunteers,  and  not 
North  Carolina  militia.  In  the  Life  of  Edward  Lacey  it  is  stated :  "Early 
in  February,  1781,  General  Sumter  had  so  far  recovered  from  his  wounds 
as  to  take  the  field  again.  When  he  ordered  out  the  militia  of  his  part  of 
the  State  Colonel  Lacey  immediately  joined  him  with  his  regiment  and 
was  with  him  at  the  assault  on  Friday's  Ferry  i.e.  Granby  the  19th 
February,  1781."  —  Moore's  Life  of  Lacey,  24. 

3  This  corps  was  organized  under  the  authority  of  Colonel  Tarleton 
(Tarleton's  Campaigns^  117).  Lord  Cornwallis  speaks  of  it  as  "Harrison's 
new  varied  Legion,  cavalry  and  infantry  "  (  Clinton-Cornwall  is  Controversy  ^ 
vol.  I,  238),  "but  it  was  not  a  success"  (ibid.,  260).  It  was  organized  at 
first  from  the  Tories  on  Lynch's  Creek  in  the  neighborhood  of  McCallam'a 
Ferry  (Gregg's  Old  Cheraws,  308).  Of  the  character  of  Harrison  and  his 
brother  we  have  already  spoken  (Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolutionf 
1775-80  [McCrady],  642,  650). 


112  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Colonel  Doyle  ^  with  the  Volunteers  of  Ireland  was  directed 
to  proceed  from  the  neighborhood  of  Camden,  crossing  to 
the  east  of  Lynch's  Creek  at  McCallam's  Ferry  into  what 
is  now  Darlington  County,  and  moving  down  Jeffers's 
Creek  to  the  Pee  Dee,  was  to  form  a  junction  with  Watson. 
This  joint  expedition  was  begun  about  the  1st  of  March. 

1  Lieutenant  colonel  of  Lord  Rawdon's  American  regiment,  "The 
Volunteers  of  Ireland,"  recruited  in  Philadelphia,  afterwards  General  Sir 
John  Doyle,  G.C.B.  andK.C,  created  a  baronet  October  29,  1805.  See 
an  account  of  this  oflBcer  by  his  nephew.  Sir  Francis  Hastings  Doyle,  in 
his  Beminiscences,  etc.,  Appleton,  1887,  365-369,  in  which  this  interesting 
story  of  the  times  we  are  now  treating  is  quoted  from  a  speech  of  Sir 
John  while  a  member  of  Parliament,  in  support  of  an  establishment  in 
Ireland  for  the  relief  of  worn-out  and  disabled  soldiers.  "Another 
brilliant  example  of  devotion  to  duty  flashes  across  my  mind.  When  Lord 
Rawdon  was  in  South  Carolina  he  had  to  send  an  express  of  great 
Importance  through  a  country  filled  with  the  enemy's  troops.  A  corporal 
of  the  Seventeenth  Dragoons  known  for  his  courage  and  intelligence  was 
selected  to  escort  it.  They  had  not  proceeded  far  when  they  were  fired 
upon,  the  express  killed,  and  the  corporal  wounded  in  the  side;  careless 
of  his  wound,  but  he  thought  of  his  duty  ;  he  snatched  the  despatch  from 
the  dying  man  and  rode  on  until  from  the  loss  of  blood  he  fell,  when, 
fearing  the  despatch  would  be  taken  by  the  enemy,  he  thrust  it  into  his 
wound  until  the  wound  closed  upon  it,  and  concealed  it.  He  was  found 
the  next  day  by  a  British  patrol,  with  a  smile  of  honorable  pride  upon  his 
countenance,  and  with  life  just  sufficient  to  point  to  the  fatal  depository 
of  his  secret.  In  searching  the  body  was  found  the  cause  of  his  death, 
for  the  surgeon  declared  the  wound  itself  was  not  mortal,  but  was  ren- 
dered so  by  the  irritation  of  the  paper.  Thus  fell,"  exclaimed  Sir  John, 
"  this  patriot  soldier ;  in  rank,  a  corporal,  he  was  in  mind  a  hero.  His 
name  was  O'Leary,  from  the  parish  of  Moria  in  County  Down.  Whilst 
memory  holds  her  seat,  the  devotion  of  this  generous  victim  to  his  own 
sense  of  duty  will  be  present  to  my  mind.  I  would  not  for  worlds  have 
lost  his  name.  How  much  would  it  have  lived  in  Greek  or  Roman  story  ! 
Not  the  Spartan  hero  of  Thermopylse,  not  the  Roman  Curtius,  in  their 
self-devotion  went  beyond  him.  Leonidas  fought  in  the  presence  of  a 
grateful  country,  he  was  in  a  strange  land  unseen.  Curtius  had  all  Rome 
for  his  spectators,  O'Leary  gave  himself  to  death  alone  in  a  desert.  He 
adopted  the  sentiment  without  knowing  the  language,  and  chose  for  his 
epitaph,  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori." 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  113 

Marion's  scouts  informing  him  of  Watson's  movement, 
that  gaUant  and  intrepid  leader  did  not  wait  for  the  attack, 
but  himself  at  once  assumed  the  offensive.  Leaving  Colonel 
Erwin  in  command  of  the  camp  at  Snow  Island,  by  one  of 
his  rapid  movements,  on  March  6th  Marion  met  Watson 
at  Wiboo  Swamp,  about  midway  between  Nelson's  and 
Murray's  ferries,  in  what  is  now  Clarendon  County.  Hav- 
ing but  little  ammunition,  not  more  than  twenty  rounds  to 
each  man,  Marion  resorted  to  strategy,  and  here  he  laid 
his  first  ambuscade.  Colonel  Peter  Horry  was  placed  in 
advance,  while  he  with  the  cavalry  and  remainder  of  his 
brigade,  amounting  to  about  four  hundred  men,  lay  in 
reserve.  Horry  made  considerable  impression  upon  the 
Tories  in  advance,  but  Watson  Avith  two  field-pieces  at 
the  head  of  his  regulars  dislodged  Horry's  men  from  the 
swamp,  whereupon  the  Tory  cavalry,  under  Major  Harri- 
son, pursued.  This  had  been  anticipated,  and  Captain 
Conyers  with  a  party  of  cavalry  had  been  placed  in  a  con- 
cealed position  to  meet  it.  As  the  British  and  Tories 
came  up,  Conyers  dashed  in  among  them,  killing  with  his 
own  hand  the  officer  who  led  them,  and  with  that  Captain 
McCauley,  upon  Marion's  order,  charged  and  dispersed  the 
enemy.  In  this  action  Gavin  James,  a  private  in  Marion's 
ranks,  of  gigantic  size,  greatly  distinguished  himself,  hold- 
ing a  causeway  single-handed  against  a  strong  party  of  the 
enemy.i 

While  these  movements  were  being  made  by  Sumter 
and  Marion  on  the  Congaree  and  Pee  Dee,  a  spirited  affair 
had  taken  place  on  the  Saluda,  in  what  is  now  Newberry 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  98,  99.  The  officer  killed  by  Conyers,  James 
says  was  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  two  Harrisons  mentioned  in  a 
previous  volume  {Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution  [McCrady],  G42). 
And  this  supposition  appears  to  have  been  correct  (Gregg's  Hist,  of  the 
Old  Cheraws,  308). 

VOL.  IV.  —  I 


114  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

County.  The  battle  of  Mud  Lick,  as  it  was  called,  was 
fought  on  the  2d  of  March.  A  garrison  of  British  sol- 
diers and  Tories  stationed  at  Williams's  Fort,  annoying 
the  people  in  that  neighborhood.  Colonel  Benjamin  Roe- 
buck^ and  Colonel  Henry  White  determined  to  break  up 
the  nest  of  plunderers.  This  they  proceeded  to  do  with  a 
party  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and  by  a  strata- 
gem induced  the  enemy  to  abandon  the  fort  and  come  out 
to  attack  them.  A  party  of  mounted  men  showed  them- 
selves before  the  fort  and  retreated.  Upon  this  the  enemy 
came  out  and  began  a  hot  pursuit,  confident  of  an  easy 
victory.  The  mounted  Whigs  fell  back  before  the  advanc- 
ing foe  until  they  had  drawn  them  within  easy  range  of 
riflemen  concealed  in  ambush.  At  the  proper  moment 
Colonel  White  fired  a  shot,  killing  one  of  the  foremost 
British  officers.  The  battle  soon  became  general,  and  con- 
tinued for  an  hour  with  alternate  advantages,  ultimately 
resulting  in  the  total  rout  of  the  British  and  Tories.  The 
Whigs  did  not  lose  many,  but  among  the  killed  was 
Captain  Robert  Thomas,  an  officer  much  beloved  and 
lamented.  Both  Colonel  Roebuck  and  Colonel  White 
were  wounded.^ 

After  the  affair  at  Wiboo  Swamp,  Watson  rested  a  day 
or  two  at  Cantey's  plantation  in  what  is  now  Clarendon,  and 
then  continued  his  march  down  the  Santee,  which  Marion 

1  Benjamin  Roebuck  was  born  in  Orange  County,  Virginia,  about  1755. 
His  fatlier  settled  in  what  is  now  Spartanburg  County  in  1777,  and  the 
next  year  young  Roebuck  served  as  lieutenant  in  Georgia,  and  was  at  Stono 
and  Savannah.  In  1780  he  joined  Sumter  and  was  at  Hanging  Rock, 
Musgrove's  Mills,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  at  King's  Mountain,  distinguished 
himself  at  Cowpens,  where  he  had  a  horse  shot  under  him.  He  was  now 
badly  wounded,  and  made  prisoner,  was  incarcerated  at  Ninety  Six,  where 
he  remained  during  the  siege,  was  subsequently  taken  to  Charlestown,  and 
placed  on  a  prison  ship  until  exchanged  in  August,  1781. 

2  Johnson's  Traditions^  423-424  ;  King''s  Mountain  and  its  Heroes.,  470. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  115 

opposed  by  destroying  bridges  and  harassing  him  at  every 
step.  At  Mount  Hope,  in  what  is  now  Williamsburg  County, 
Watson  found  the  bridge  destroyed,  and  had  to  sustain 
a  second  conflict  with  Marion's  rear  guard  under  Horry. 
But  with  the  aid  of  his  field-pieces  and  by  the  strength  of 
his  column  he  was  enabled  to  make  good  his  way.  Near 
Murray's  Ferry,  Watson  passed  the  Kingstree  road  to  his 
left,  and  when  he  came  to  the  Black  River  road  which 
crosses  at  the  lower  bridge,  he  made  a  feint  of  still  continu- 
ing down  the  Santee  ;  but  soon  after  turning,  took  that  road 
on  which  the  lower  bridge  was,  distant  twelve  miles. 
Marion  had  not  been  deceived.  He  had  detached  Major 
James  at  the  head  of  seventy  men,  thirty  of  whom  were 
riflemen  under  McCottry,  to  destroy  the  remnant  of  the 
bridge  which  had  been  partially  broken  up,  and  to  take 
post  there  while  he  kept  watch  on  Watson.  Major  James 
reached  the  bridge  by  a  nearer  route,  crossed  it,  threw  off 
the  planks,  fired  the  string-pieces  at  the  northeastern  end, 
and  posted  his  riflemen  so  as  to  command  the  ford  and  all 
the  approaches  on  the  other  side.  Marion  soon  after 
arrived  with  the  rest  of  his  men,  and  disposed  them  in  the 
rear  so  as  to  support  James's  party.  Watson  now  appeared 
on  the  plain  beyond  and  opened  with  his  field-pieces,  which 
had  been  so  effective  at  Wiboo  and  Mount  Hope,  but,  for- 
tunately for  Marion,  the  topography  of  the  ground  here 
rendered  them  comparatively  useless.  Owing  to  the  ele- 
vation on  the  southwestern  side  of  the  river,  the  effect  of 
the  artillery  was  but  to  cut  off  the  tops  and  limbs  of  the 
trees  above  the  heads  of  Marion's  men.  To  remedy  this 
Watson  brought  up  his  guns  to  the  brow  of  the  hill,  so  as, 
by  depressing  them  there,  to  reach  the  riflemen  on  the  low 
ground  on  the  opposite  side  ;  but  these  picked  off  the  can- 
noneers with  their  rifles  before  they  could  bring  their 
pieces  to  bear.     An  attempt  was  then  made  to  carry  the 


116  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

ford  by  direct  attack.  Watson  drew  up  his  columns  in 
the  old  field  over  the  river,  and  his  advance  was  now  seen 
approaching  the  ford  with  an  officer  at  its  head  waving  his 
sword.  McCottry  fired  the  signal  gun,  the  officer  clapped 
his  liand  to  his  breast,  and  fell  to  the  ground.  The  rifle- 
men and  musketeers  next  poured  in  a  well-directed  and 
deadly  fire,  and  the  British  advance  fled  in  disorder,  nor 
did  the  reserve  move  forward  to  its  support.  Four  men 
returned  to  bear  off  their  fallen  leader,  but  all  four  shared 
his  fate.  In  the  evening  Watson  succeeded  in  removing 
his  dead  and  wounded,  and  took  position  at  John  Wither- 
spoon's,  a  mile  above  the  bridge.  General  Marion  then 
took  position  on  a  ridge  below  the  ford  of  the  river,  which 
was  afterwards  called  General's  Island.  The  next  day  he 
pushed  McCottry  and  Conyers  over  the  river  to  annoy  the 
British  pickets  and  sentinels.  Thereupon  Watson  moved 
farther  up  and  established  his  camp  at  Blakeley's  planta- 
tion. There  he  remained  about  ten  days,  during  which, 
though  he  was  posted  on  an  open  field,  Marion's  riflemen 
kept  his  regulars  in  constant  dread  and  almost  panic. 
While  Blakeley's  and  Witherspoon's  provisions  lasted 
.Watson  was  able  to  maintain  himself  here  in  comparative 
safety,  notwithstanding  the  apprehensions  caused  by 
Marion's  marksmen ;  but  when  these  failed  it  became 
necessary  to  send  out  foraging  parties,  and  this  brought 
on  daily  skirmishes.  In  these  affairs  Captain  Conyers 
greatly  distinguished  himself,  his  name  becoming  almost 
as  great  a  dread  to  the  British  as  Tarleton's  had  been  to 
the  Americans.  An  incident  which  is  said  to  have  in- 
creased the  panic  of  the  British  was  the  shooting,  at  three 
hundred  yards  distant,  of  an  officer.  Lieutenant  Torri- 
ano,  by  McDonald,  the  same  who  had  been  among  the 
prisoners  rescued  by  Marion  at  Nelson's  Ferry  the  year 
before,  and  who  had  remained  with  him.     For  the  removal 


IN   THE   HE  VOLUTION  117 

of  this  officer  and  some  other  of  his  wounded  men  Watson 
applied  for  a  pass  to  Charlestown,  which  Marion  granted. 
Colonel  Watson  was  now  literally  besieged.  His  supplies 
were  cut  off  on  all  sides,  and  so  many  of  his  men  killed 
that  he  is  said  by  tradition  to  have  sunk  them  in  Black 
River  to  hide  their  number. 

Watson  at  length  abandoned  the  field,  making  a  forced 
march  down  the  Georgetown  road,  but  paused  at  Ox  Swamp, 
six  miles  below  the  lower  bridge,  for  on  each  side  of  the 
road  through  it  there  was  a  thick  boggy  swamp,  and  Marion 
had  trees  felled  across  the  causeway,  and  the  bridges,  of 
which  there  were  three,  destroyed.  There  was,  moreover, 
a  still  more  difficult  pass  at  Johnson's,  ten  miles  farther  on. 
Watson,  therefore,  turned  to  the  right  and  crossed  through 
the  open  piney  woods  to  the  Santee  road,  distant  about 
fifteen  miles.  Marion  pressed  on  after  him,  sending 
Colonel  Peter  Horry  in  advance  with  the  cavalry  and 
riflemen.  Watson  was  thus  pressed  and  annoyed  along 
his  whole  route  until  they  reached  Sampit  bridge,  nine 
miles  from  Georgetown,  where  the  last  skirmish  took 
place.  Here  Marion  received  news  of  Doyle's  movements, 
which  arrested  his  progress  and  summoned  him  to  meet 
new  perils.  Watson  reached  Georgetown  with  two  wagon- 
loads  of  wounded  men.^  An  intercepted  letter,  dated 
March,2  without  the  day  of  the  month,  but  which  James 
gives  as  of  the  20th,  shows  that  he  had  been  hemmed  in 
so  closely  that  he  was  in  want  of  everything,  and  had 
taken  this  route  to  Georgetown,  fifty  miles  out  of  his  way, 
to  obtain  supplies.  From  the  fort  at  Wright's  Bluff  Wat- 
son had  not  advanced  more  than  forty  miles  on  his  way  to 
join  Doyle  in  an  attack  upon  Snow  Island.  The  loss  of 
the  British  during   these  movements  was  great,  but   the 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  99-104. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentarij  Hist.,  1781-82,  47. 


118  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

exact  number  is  unknown.  Marion  is  said  to  have  lost 
but  one  man. 

In  the  meanwhile,  Colonel  Doyle,  in  pursuance  of  the 
plan  of  their  joint  operations,  after  crossing  Lynch's  Creek 
at  McCallam's  Ferry,  had  moved  down  on  the  east  of  that 
river  towards  Snow  Island,  which,  it  will  be  recollected, 
had  been  left  with  a  small  guard  under  Colonel  Erwin. 
This  officer,  after  a  short  engagement  in  which  he  lost 
seven  killed  and  fifteen  prisoners,^  retreated;  but  before 
doing  so  he  had  the  supplies  there  of  army  stores  and 
ammunition  thrown  into  Lynch's  Creek.  This,  at  this 
crisis,  was  a  most  serious  loss. 

From  Sampit  Marion  marched  back  towards  Snow  Island. 
On  the  way,  receiving  intelligence  that  Doyle  lay  at  With- 
erspoon's  Ferry,  across  Lynch's  Creek,  he  proceeded  forth- 
with to  attack  him.  Doyle  had  taken  a  position  on  the 
north  or  Georgetown  side  of  the  ferry,  and  when  McCottry 
in  advance  with  his  mounted  riflemen  arrived  at  the  creek, 
the  British  were  scuttling  a  ferry-boat  on  the  opposite  side. 
From  a  position  behind  the  trees,  he  gave  them  a  well- 
directed  fire,  under  which  a  British  officer  and  sergeant 
were  wounded. ^  They  ran  to  their  arms,  and  returned 
the  fire  with  a  heavy  volley,  which,  however,  inflicted  no 
loss  upon  the  Americans.  Doyle  then  retired.  The  ferry- 
boat being  scuttled,  and  Lynch's  Creek  swollen,  and  at  this 
place  wide  and  deep,  Marion  moved  up  its  course  until  he 
reached  a  more  practicable  place  for  crossing,  five  miles 
above  the  ferry,  there  he  swam  the  river  and  pursued 
Doyle.  He  continued  the  pursuit  for  two  days,  when, 
coming  up  to  a  house  at  which  Doyle  had  destroyed  all 
his  heavy  baggage,  and  learning  that  he  had  proceeded 
with  great  celerity  towards  Camden,  he  halted. 

Marion  now  learned  of  the  loss  of  his  ammunition  and 
1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  April  4,  1781.  «  Ibid, 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  119 

stores  at  Snow  Island.  It  was  a  great  blow  to  him,  and 
under  present  circumstances  appeared  irretrievable  ;  but 
his  spirit  was  still  unbroken.  In  the  meantime,  Colonel 
Watson,  having  refreshed  and  reenforced  his  party,  and 
received  a  fresh  supply  of  military  stores  and  provisions 
at  Georgetown,  turned  again  towards  the  Pee  Dee,  and 
marched  to  Catfish  Creek,  a  mile  from  where  the  town  of 
Marion  now  stands.  Here  Gainey's  party  ^  had  flocked  in 
to  him  in  such  numbers  that  he  was  soon  said  to  be  nine 
hundred  strong.  Retui-ning  from  the  pursuit  of  Doyle, 
and  hearing  of  the  approach  of  Watson,  Marion  crossed 
the  Pee  Dee  at  the  Wrahees,  five  miles  from  him.  His 
own  force  was  now  increased  to  five  hundred  men,  but  he 
had  no  more  than  two  rounds  of  ammunition  to  each  man. 
It  was  proposed,  therefore,  to  retreat  into  North  Carolina, 
or,  if  necessary,  to  the  mountains,  and  Colonels  Peter 
Horry,  Hugh  Horry,  James  Postell,  and  John  Erwin, 
Majors  John  James,  John  Baxter,  and  Alexander  Swinton, 
had  agreed  to  go  with  him,  when  the  news  was  received 
of  the  approach  of  Colonel  Lee,  the  advance  of  General 
Greene,  upon  his  return  to  South  Carolina.  The  circum- 
stances which  led  to  this  event  must  be  reserved  to 
another  chapter. 

1  Major  Micajah  Gainey,  son  of  an  Englishman,  Stephen  Gainey,  who 
had  settled  at  an  early  period  on  a  spot  six  miles  below  the  present  town  of 
Marion.  He  had  a  respectable  property  and  at  first  took  sides  with  the 
Revolutionary  party,  but  considering  himself  aggrieved,  he  went  over  to 
the  enemy,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  commission  of  major  and  put  in  com- 
mand of  the  Tories  of  his  neighborhood.  He  became  a  person  of  con- 
siderable influence  on  the  Tory  side  in  that  section. 


CHAPTER   V 

1781 

General  Greene,  as  it  has  appeared,  was  anxious  to 
bring  out  and  organize  the  militia  to  operate  in  the  rear 
of  Cornwallis  during  his  invasion  of  North  Carolina,  and 
for  this  purpose  he  had  called  upon  the  Whigs  of  Meck- 
lenburg. Unhappily  General  Davidson,  the  gallant  com- 
mander of  the  militia  of  North  Carolina,  had  already 
fallen  while  resisting  the  crossing  of  the  Catawba  at 
Cowan's  Ford  by  the  British;  and  the  office  to  which 
Colonel  Davie  had  been  assigned  having  withdrawn  him 
from  the  field,  the  Whigs  in  this  neighborhood  were  left 
without  either  leader  under  whom  they  had  formerly 
acted,  and  none  other  appeared  sufficiently  popular  to  in- 
spirit and  conduct  them  to  further  enterprise.  They  there- 
fore held  a  meeting  and  requested  General  Greene  to 
assign  Morgan  to  their  command ;  but  Morgan  had  become 
dissatisfied,  and,  suffering  also  from  a  serious  indisposition, 
declined  the  command  and  retired  from  the  field.  Greene, 
it  also  appears,  was  in  hope  that  when  Sumter  came  out  he 
would  undertake  this  duty,  but,  as  has  been  seen,  he  had 
moved  in  another  direction.  General  Greene  now  turned 
to  Pickens,  who,  as  soon  as  he  was  relieved  of  the  charge 
of  the  Cowpens  prisoners,  had  rejoined  his  commander  at 
Salisbury.  His  followers  were  now  reduced  to  a  handful, 
for  the  retreat  of  the  army  had  called  most  of  them  away 
to  provide  for  the  subsistence  and  safety  of  their  families. 
The  Whigs  of  North  Carolina  were  advised  to  place  th(Mn- 

120 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  121 

selves  under  the  command  of  Pickens,  who  had  now  been 
made  brigadier  general  by  Governor  Rutledge  and  he  was 
instructed  to  hang  upon  the  skirts  of  the  enemy,  watch 
the  movements  of  his  small  detachments,  guard  particu- 
larly against  surprise,  and  as  soon  as  an  opportunity  af- 
forded, to  pass  Lord  Cornwallis  and  join  Greene's  army  at 
Guilford  or  wherever  else  he  should  make  a  stand.  Gen- 
eral Huger,  who  on  his  march  from  the  Cheraws  had 
been  overtaken  by  Colonel  Lee  from  the  lower  Fee  Dee, 
formed  a  junction  with  General  Greene  and  Morgan's  com- 
mand at  Guilford  on  the  7th  of  February.  On  the  10th 
of  the  month  the  two  armies  lay  within  twenty-five  miles 
of  each  other,  the  one  at  Salem,  the  other  at  Guilford. 
From  Guilford  Greene  retreated  to  the  lower  Dan  and 
crossed  into  Virginia,  while  Cornwallis  marched  to  Hills- 
boro.  The  armies  were  in  these  positions  when  Greene 
resolved,  on  the  morning  of  the  22d,  to  strike  a  blow  at  one 
of  the  British  posts  at  Hart's  Mill,  two  and  a  half  miles 
from  Hillsboro.  Captain  Eggleston  of  the  Legionary 
corps  was  accordingly  despatched  for  the  purpose,  and 
with  boldness  and  precaution  approached  the  position  of 
the  picket,  but  found  himself  anticipated  and  the  whole 
picket  already  killed  or  in  possession  of  an  American 
party. 

This  service,  says  Johnson,  was  performed  by  Colo- 
nel McCall  detached  for  the  purpose  by  General  Pickens.^ 
The  necessities  of  their  families,  as  we  have  said,  had 
obliged  one-half  of  Pickens's  command  to  return  to  their 
homes ;  but  the  gallant  little  band  of  South  Carolinians 
under  McCall  still  adhered  to  him,  and  by  the  accession  of 
volunteers  from  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  their  num- 
bers were  increased  to  360  rank  and  file,  consisting  of  Mc- 

1  Johnson  speaks  of  this  officer  as  Hugh  McCall ;  but  there  is  evidently 
a  mistake.     It  was  James  McCall. 


122  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Call's  party  of  horse,  about  45  in  number,  and  the  rest 
well-mounted  riflemen.  With  this  party  Pickens  ad- 
vanced upon  Cornwallis  by  the  direct  road  from  Guilford 
to  Hillsboro,  and  without  knowing  of  his  near  approach  to 
the  party  under  Lee,  although  apprized  of  their  being  on 
the  same  service,  had  anticipated  him  in  the  enterprise 
against  the  British  picket.^  Schenck  charges  that  John- 
son falls  into  an  error  in  ascribing  this  coup  de  main  to 
McCall  of  South  Carolina,  and  asserts  that  it  was  really 
performed  by  Captain  Graham  of  North  Carolina,  that 
McCall  was  in  fact  ten  miles  distant  from  the  scene.^  But 
the  evidence  of  Pickens  and  Greene  is  decisive  upon  the 
point.  Greene  writes  to  Pickens  on  the  26th  of  February : 
"  I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  two  letters  of 
the  23d,  wherein  you  acquaint  me  with  the  surprise  of  a 
British  picket  by  Colonel  McCall.  .  .  .  The  affair  of  Colo- 
nel McCall  was  executed  with  firmness  and  address,  and 
discovered  a  spirit  of  enterprise  and  genius  which  I  shall 
be  ever  happy  to  cherish."  ^  This  contemporaneous  testi- 
mony of  the  two  commanding  officers  was  certainly  suffi- 
cient to  warrant  Johnson  in  crediting  the  affair  to  McCall. 
It  is  not  at  all  impossible,  however,  that  Captain  Graham 
may  have  commanded  the  detachment  which  under 
McCall's  orders  actually  made  the  attack  and  capture. 

On  the  night  of  the  21st,  General  Greene,  attended  by  a 
small  escort,  had  visited  General  Pickens's  camp,  and  spent 
the  greater  part  of  the  night  in  his  bush  tent  in  consultation 
with  Pickens  and  Lee  as  to  their  future  movements.  Then, 
committing  the  combined  detachments  of  Pickens  and  Lee 
to  the  command  of  the  former,  he  exhorted  the  two  com- 
manders to  let  nothing  disturb  their  harmony  —  an  admoni- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  450. 

^No.  Ca.,  1780-81  (Schenck),  275. 

*  See  letter,  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  457. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  123 

tion  which  was  not  violated  by  either  of  them  during  the 
war.  The  orders  given  to  Pickens  were  to  make  every 
effort  to  prevent  the  embodying  of  the  Loyalists  and  impede 
the  progress  of  the  British  army  should  their  commander 
attempt  to  retreat  before  the  main  army  could  advance  to 
attack  it.  Pickens  lost  not  a  moment  in  performing  the 
service  committed  to  his  charge.  By  the  examination  of 
prisoners  taken  by  McCall,  Greene  became  satisfied  that 
Cornwallis  had  no  intention  of  moving  southwardly  ;  and 
having  been  joined  by  about  a  thousand  militia  from  North 
Carolina  and  expecting  a  thousand  more  in  a  few  days, 
Greene  determined  to  prepare  for  a  decisive  blow  by  hasten- 
ing on  his  reenforcements,  while  he  occupied  with  the  main 
army  a  position  favorable  for  covering  the  concentration  and 
for  cutting  off  the  enemy's  communication  with  the  upper 
country.  For  this  purpose  he  recrossed  the  Dan,  and 
marched  toward  the  head  of  Haw  River  on  the  route  to 
Guilford  in  a  westwardly  direction.  Pickens  directing 
his  march  in  a  line  nearly  parallel  to  that  of  the 
main  army,  and  about  twenty  miles  distant  from  it, 
purposed  to  pass  the  Haw,  and  by  secret  and  rapid  move- 
ments to  disperse  several  parties  of  Tories  who  were 
collecting.  This  route  soon  brought  him  upon  the  trail  of 
Tarleton,  and  apprehensive  of  the  safety  of  several  parties 
of  militia  who  were  marching  to  join  him,  as  they  were 
without  cavalry  to  oppose  to  Tarleton,  Pickens,  without 
hesitation,  moved  at  once  in  his  pursuit.  Such  was  the  ex- 
pedition with  which  he  pressed  the  pursuit  that  at  noon  on 
the  25  th  he  was  near  surprising  the  great  cavalry  leader  when 
quietly  at  his  dinner.  Following  Tarleton  as  he  was,  from 
the  direction  of  Hillsboro,  his  party  was  taken  for  a  reenforce- 
ment  to  that  officer,  a  mistake  the  more  easily  made  because 
of  the  similarity  in  the  uniforms  of  Tarleton's  and  Lee's 
Legions.  Never,  declared  Pickens,  was  there  a  more  glorious 


124  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

opportunity  of  cutting  off  a  detachment,  when  it  was  lost 
by  a  most  singular  circumstance  —  a  circumstance,  however, 
which  brought  about  the  utter  destruction  of  a  party  of 
Tories  instead.  While  pushing  on  in  the  pursuit  of  Tarle- 
ton,  Pickens  fell  in  with  a  body  of  two  hundred  or  three 
hundred  Tories  under  the  command  of  a  Colonel  Pyles.  The 
situation  of  Pickens  was  now  embarrassing  in  the  extreme, 
between  Tarleton's  Legion  and  this  body  of  Tories.  But  for- 
tunately observing  from  the  confident  approach  of  a  courier 
from  the  Tories,  that  they  had  also  mistaken  his  command  for 
a  British  party,  he  boldly  resolved  to  pass  without  undeceiv- 
ing them,  and  to  hasten  to  the  attack  of  Tarleton,then  within 
one  mile  encamped,  without  an  apprehension  of  danger. 
Pyles,  unfortunately  for  himself  and  his  band,  inspired  with 
a  loyal  desire  to  pay  due  homage  to  his  Majesty's  troops,  had 
drawn  up  his  men  on  the  right  of  the  road  very  near  to  its 
margin.  They  were  all  mounted  and  their  guns  resting  on 
their  shoulders.  So  complete  was  the  imposition  that  the 
dragoons  which  marched  in  file  in  front,  their  swords  drawn, 
had  reached  the  end  of  Pyles's  line  before  a  suspicion  was  ex- 
cited. The  infantry  of  the  Legion  might  also  have  passed, 
and  probably  the  militia,  for  there  was  nothing  to  distinguish 
them  from  the  troops  with  Tarleton;  but,  unfortunately,  the 
Maryland  companies  under  Lee  had  been  too  familiarly 
known  in  that  neighborhood  and  their  uniform  had  nothing 
like  it  in  the  British  army.  Their  appearance  exposed  the 
deception,  and  the  instantaneous  discharge  of  a  few  guns 
in  the  rear  brought  the  whole  corps  upon  the  unfortunate 
Loyalists.  What  followed  was  the  result  of  a  very  few 
minutes.  Those  who  did  not  sink  under  the  first  onset  of 
the  cavalry  broke  away  in  confusion,  and  many  fell  beneath 
a  volley  from  the  riflemen.  Pickens  made  the  most  earnest 
efforts  to  suppress  the  firing,  not  only  from  the  dictates  of 
humanity,  but  from  the  fear  of  alarming  the  unsuspecting 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  125 

Tarleton.  But  before  his  order  could  be  enforced,  the 
work  had  been  done,  one  hundred  had  been  left  dead  on  the 
field,  and  very  few  escaped  not  grievously  wounded.  Pyles 
himself  fell  under  many  strokes  of  the  sword,  but  survived, 
though  dreadfully  mutilated. ^  So  complete  was  the  decep- 
tion that  Tarleton  relates  that  several  of  the  wounded 
Loyalists  entered  the  British  camp  and  complained  to 
Tarleton  of  the  cruelty  of  his  dragoons.^  This  was  the 
first  explanation  given  him  of  the  firing  which  had  been 
heard  in  his  camp.  Night  put  an  end  to  the  slaughter,  and 
Pickens,  notwithstanding  the  darkness,  proceeded  at  once 
to  place  himself  between  Tarleton  and  his  own  approaching 
reenforcements.  Tarleton,  with  no  suspicion  that  he  was 
in  the  neighborhood  of  so  superior  an  enemy,  had  actually 
drawn  up  his  men  at  midnight  to  strike  at  Preston,  who 
was  in  command  of  one  of  the  parties  for  whose  safety 
Pickens  was  so  solicitous,  Avhen  an  express  from  Lord 
Cornwallis  recalled  him  instantly  to  Hillsboro.  His  lord- 
ship had  heard  of  the  advance  of  the  Americans,  and  had 
at  once  sent  to  warn  Tarleton  of  his  danger  and  to  recall 
him  to  the  main  army. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  history  to  follow  the 
movements  of  the  armies  under  Greene  and  Cornwallis, 
which  culminated  at  Guilford  Court-house,  or  to  detail 
the  events  of  that  battle,  in  which  South  Carolina,  save  in 
the  presence  of  General  Isaac  Huger,  had  no  part.  It  is 
more  immediately  concerned  in  the  history  of  the  small 
party  under  Pickens.  From  the  time  this  officer  had 
joined  General  Morgan  it  has  been  seen  that  he  had  nob 
rested  a  day.  Some  of  the  officers  and  men  under  him 
had  been  engaged  in  the  most  active  service  ever  since  the 
fall  of  Charlestown.  The  rest  had  abandoned  their  homes 
with  Pickens  himself,  and  had  taken  to  the  field  when,  in 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  I,  454-455.        2  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  232. 


126  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAKOLINA 

violation  of  their  paroles,  they  had  been  called  upon  to  serve 
in  the  British  army.  They  had  received  neither  clothing 
nor  pay,  and  came  into  the  service  mounted  at  their  own 
expense.  They  were  not  of  that  class  of  men  who  can 
minister  to  their  own  by  invading  the  comforts  of  others  ; 
most,  if  not  all,  were  men  of  respectable  connections  and 
comfortable  property.  But  their  condition  now  was 
scarcely  to  be  borne ;  they  had  not  the  clothing  necessary 
to  common  decency.  Yet  no  one  deserted,  no  one  mur- 
mured, but,  foregoing  the  privileges  of  volunteers,  they 
resisted  the  example  of  hundreds  who  daily  came  and  went 
as  they  pleased,  and  never  shrank  from  their  duty  in  the 
midst  of  retreat,  privation,  and  suffering.  But  Pickens 
could  no  longer  forbear  calling  the  attention  of  the  com- 
manding general  to  their  claims  and  suffering.  In  the 
neighborhood  of  their  friends  their  tattered  clothing  might 
be  replenished.  No  demand  for  discharge  was  hinted  at. 
But  besides  their  own  increasing  necessities,  affairs  in  their 
own  State  were  now  demanding  their  return.  In  addition 
to  the  large  British  force  retained  in  South  Carolina, 
appearances  on  the  frontier  threatened  a  serious  invasion 
from  the  Indians.  Not  only  their  own  apprehensions,  but 
those  of  General  Greene  himself,  were  seriously  awakened 
for  the  fate  of  their  families  and  connections ;  and  General 
Pickens  was  ordered  to  repair  to  the  back  parts  of  South 
Carolina  to  protect  the  Whigs,  suppress  the  Loyalists,  and 
cooperate  with  General  Sumter  in  the  active  enterprises  in 
w^hich  that  indefatigable  patriot  was  then  engaged.^ 

While  General  Pickens  was  on  his  march  to  South  Caro- 
lina, a  party  of  the  New  York  Volunteers  under  the  com- 
mand of  Captain  Grey  was  detached  by  Lord  Rawdon  from 
Camden,  to  disperse  a  body  of  militia  who  were  gathering 
on  Dutchman  Creek,  in  what  is  now  Fairfield  County. 
1  Johnson's  Life,  of  Crreene,  vol.  I,  469. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  127 

This  the  New  York  Volunteers  succeeded  in  doing,  killing 
two  captains,  sixteen  privates,  and  taking  eighteen  pris- 
oners without  the  loss  of  a  man  on  their  part.^ 

General  Pickens  on  his  return  to  South  Carolina  was 
joined  by  Colonel  Elijah  Clarke,  who  had  now  recovered 
from  his  wounds  received  in  the  affair  at  Long  Cane  in 
December.  As  he  was  pursuing  his  march,  Pickens  re- 
ceived intelligence  that  Major  Dunlap  with  seventy-five 
British  dragoons  had  been  detached  from  Ninety  Six  into 
the  country  on  a  foraging  expedition.  Pickens  at  once 
detached  Clarke  and  McCall  to  attack  him.  On  the  24th  of 
March  they  came  up  with  Dunlap,  encamped  at  Beattie's 
Mill,  on  Little  River,  in  what  is  now  Abbeville  County.  A 
bridge  over  which  Dunlap  must  pass  in  retreat  was  seized 
by  a  party  detached  for  the  purpose,  and  with  the  main 
body  Clarke  himself  advanced  to  the  attack.  Dunlap,  sur- 
prised, retired  into  the  mill  and  some  outhouses,  but  these 
were  too  open  for  defence  against  riflemen.  Recollecting, 
no  doubt,  his  infamous  conduct  and  dreading  the  revenge 
of  these  men — if  not  of  Pickens  and  McCall  themselves  — 
for  his  outrageous  treatment  of  their  families  and  friends, 
Dunlap  resolved  to  sell  his  life  dearly,  and  resisted  for 
several  hours,  until  thirty-four  of  his  men  were  killed  and 
others  wounded,  himself  among  the  latter,  when  he  held  out 
a  flag  and  surrendered.  The  prisoners  taken  were  forty- 
two,  including  the  wounded.  These  were  sent  to  Watauga, 
in  what  is  now  East  Tennessee,  for  safe-keeping. ^ 

McCall,  the  historian  of  Georgia,  states  that  Dunlap  died 
the  ensuing  night,  and  adds,  "  The  British  account  of  this 
affair  stated  that  Dunlap  was  murdered  by  the  guard  after 
he  had  surrendered,  but  such  is  not  the  fact,  however  much 
he  deserved   such  treatment."     Commenting    upon   this, 

1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  March  21,  1781. 

2  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  361. 


128  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Draper  observes  that  McCall  errs  in  supposing  thatDnnlap 
was  not  killed  bj  his  guard,  or  by  some  one  with  their 
connivance.  It  was  covered  up  as  much  as  possible  by 
those  who  perpetrated  the  act ;  but  General  Pickens,  whose 
high  sense  of  honor  revolted  against  such  turpitude,  even 
against  an  officer  of  Dunlap's  infamous  character,  "  offered 
a  handsome  reward  for  the  murderer,"  as  General  Greene 
subsequently  testifies  in  a  letter  to  Colonel  Balfour,  ac- 
companied with  a  copy  of  Pickens's  order  proclaiming  the 
reward. 1  It  will  be  remembered  that  once  before  Dun- 
lap  was  supposed  to  have  been  killed.  It  is  curious  that 
a  doubt  should  have  again  existed  as  to  his  death  at  this 
time ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  observation  that  The  Royal  Gra- 
zette  —  published  in  Charlestown  —  the  faithful  chronicler 
of  the  affairs  of  the  British  army,  especially  of  all  alleged 
atrocities  on  the  part  of  the  Americans,  should  have  no 
notice  of  this  affair,  or  even  of  Dunlap's  death.  Draper 
asserts,  however,  that  a  successor  was  appointed  to  his 
place,  whose  commission  bore  date  the  28th  of  March, 
which  he  supposes  to  be  the  date  of  Dunlap's  death.  Certain 
it  is  that  this  noted  and  cruel  man  disappears  from  the 
scene  of  the  war  at  this  period,  and,  as  Draper  observes, 
while  the  manner  of  his  taking  off  is  to  be  regretted,  he 
had  little  reason  to  expect  better  treatment. 

1  King^s  Mountain  and  its  Heroes,  163-164  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol.  II,  195 ;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  161 ;  Gordon's  Am.  War,  vol. 
IV,  167.  This  work  has  recently  been  severely  criticised  by  Orin  Grant 
Libby,  Ph.D.,  in  a  critical  examination  of  it  published  in  the  Annual 
Beport  of  the  American  Historical  Association,  1899,  vol.  I,  365,  in  which 
Professor  Libby  shows  that  it  is  made  up,  to  a  large  extent,  of  excerpts 
from  the  Annual  Begister,  without  acknowledgment  or  reference.  In 
this  instance,  however,  Gordon's  authority  is  not  the  Annual  Begister, 
but  a  letter  of  General  Greene  to  Colonel  Balfour  on  the  subject  of  Colo- 
nel Hayne's  execution.  Jared  Sparks,  in  his  Life  of  Oouverneur  Morris, 
vol.  I,  p.  255,  observes  "that  Gordon  suspected  many  things  that  never 
happened,  as  he  wrote  many  things  not  worth  recording." 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  129 

Another  leader  now  took  the  field  whose  deeds  were  to 
rival  those  of  Sumter  and  Marion,  and  who  was  to  carry 
the  war  across  the  line  of  communication  between  Charles- 
town  and  the  upper  country,  back  into  the  region  in  which 
it  had  first  been  waged. 

William  Harden  was  a  native  of  what  is  now  Barnwell 
County.  On  the  23d  of  February,  1776,  he  had  been 
elected  captain  of  an  artillery  company  at  Beaufort  by 
the  Provincial  Congress,  and  had  subsequently  become  a 
colonel  of  militia,  in  which  capacity  he  served  under  General 
Bull  in  the  early  part  of  the  war.  Upon  the  fall  of  Charles- 
town  he  had  joined  Marion  with  a  few  followers  whom  he 
kept  together.  His  small  party  had  now  been  considerably 
increased  by  refugees  from  his  old  neighborhood,  in  the  pres- 
ent counties  of  Barnwell,  Hampton,  and  Beaufort,  and  now 
numbered  seventy-six.  With  these  and  with  another  party 
— a  band  of  Georgia  patriots  under  Colonel  Baker,  who  had 
also  seen  considerable  service  in  the  early  part  of  the  war 
—  Harden  conceived  the  bold  design  of  leaving  Marion  on 
the  Pee  Dee,  crossing  the  Santee  and  the  country  between 
Charlestown  and  the  enemy's  posts  in  the  interior,  and  re- 
newing the  war  between  Charlestown  and  Savannah,  so  as 
to  cooperate  with  Pickens  who,  it  was  now  known,  was  on 
his  march  to  Ninety  Six.  He  started  upon  this  enterprise 
some  time  in  March  before  the  21st,  for  Marion  wrote  to 
him  on  that  day  a  letter  which  he  received  before  the  7th  of 
April. ^  With  his  party  numbering  about  one  hundred  men, 
he  crossed  the  Santee,  and  then  the  Edisto  at  Givhan's 
Ferry,  and  took  position  near  Godfrey's  Savannah  on  the 
Ashepoo  River.  Here  he  was  directly  between  Charlestown 
and  the  British  post  called  Fort  Balfour  at  Pocotaligo. 
From  his  camp  at  this  place  he  reported  to  Marion  that  the 
British  Colonel  Ballingall  had  a  few  days  before  come  up 
with  one  hundred  regulars  and  sixty  horse  to  Pon  Pon,  and 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist..  1781-82.  49. 


130  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

said  he  would  run  him  off.  However,  he  had  sent  a  small 
party  to  see  how  Colonel  Ballingall  was  situated,  as  he 
proposed  to  surprise  him  that  night;  that  his  party  had 
succeeded  in  bringing  off  two  prisoners  within  three  hundred 
yards  of  his  main  body,  whereupon  the  British  that  evening 
had  made  a  precipitate  retreat  to  Parker's  Ferry  across  the 
Pon  Pon,  as  the  Edisto  is  there  called,  and  the  next  day  to 
Dorchester.  Harden  had  expected  Marion  to  have  followed 
him,  for  he  writes :  "  I  have  been  able  to  keep  from  Pur- 
rysburg  to  Pon  Pon  clear  that  two  or  three  men  may  ride 
in  safety,  and  would  have  gone  lower  down  but  was  in 
hopes  you  would  have  been  over  the  river,  and  been  in  their 
rear  where  we  might  have  been  sure  of  them.  I  shall  re- 
main hereabouts  till  I  can  hear  from  you,  as  I  have  not  been 
able  to  take  orders  from  General  Pickens  at  Ninety  Six."  ^ 
It  is  in  this  letter  of  Colonel  Harden  to  General  Marion 
that  the  name  of  the  unfortunate  Colonel  Isaac  Hayne  first 
appears  in  connection  with  the  events  which  were  to  end 
in  his  tragic  death.  This  gentleman,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  been  elected  without  his  knowledge  a  member  of  the 
General  Assembly  which  adopted  the  Constitution  of  1778.^ 
He  was  a  man  of  great  popularity  and  a  stanch  Whig ; 
and  when  the  State  was  invaded  by  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  had 
raised  a  company  of  volunteer  cavalry,  which  operated  in 
the  rear  of  the  British  posts  during  the  siege  of  Charlestown. 
He  had  been  appointed  colonel  of  the  Colleton  County 
Regiment,  of  which  his  company  formed  a  part,  but  in  con- 
sequence of  some  intrigue  had  resigned  his  commission,  and 
had  served  as  a  private  soldier  with  great  zeal  and  deter- 
mination, thus  adding  greatly  to  the  discipline  of  the  regi- 
ment and  the  encouragement  of  his  fellow-citizens.  After 
the  surrender  of  the  town,  Hayne  had  returned  to  his  plan- 

1  Gibbes's  Doc.  History  of  the  Am.  Bevolution,  1781-82,  49-51. 

2  History  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  2775-80  (McCrady),  212. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  131 

tation  on  the  Edisto  under  the  protection  of  the  Articles  of 
Capitulation,  which  provided  that  "  the  militia  now  in 
garrison  shall  be  permitted  to  return  to  their  respective 
homes  as  prisoners  of  war  on  parole,"  which  provision,  it 
was  claimed,  applied  to  the  outposts  as  well  as  to  the 
garrison."  ^  When,  however.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  issued  his 
extraordinary  proclamation  revoking  paroles  to  all  but 
those  who  were  actually  in  garrison  at  the  time  of  the 
capitulation,  Colonel  Ballingall  of  the  Royal  militia  in  this 
district  waited  on  Hayne,  and  informed  him  that  he  had 
orders  to  require  him  to  become  a  British  subject  or  report 
instantly  to  the  commandant  at  Charlestown.  Hayne 
claimed  the  benefit  of  the  terms  of  capitulation  under  which 
he  had  surrendered.  But  his  popularity  and  patriotism 
caused  a  rigid  enforcement  of  the  terms  of  the  proclamation 
in  his  case,  and  although  small-pox  was  raging  in  his  family, 
—  all  of  his  children  being  at  the  time  sick,  one  having 
just  died,  and  his  wife  being  at  the  point  of  death,  —  even 
under  all  these  cruel  circumstances  and  distress,  this  amiable 
and  upright  citizen  was  compelled  to  choose  between  the 
abandonment  of  his  sick  family  or  of  his  country's  cause. 
Finding  remonstrance  unavailing,  he  declared  to  Ballingall 
that  no  human  force  should  remove  him  from  his  dying 
wife.  The  discussion  terminated  in  a  written  stipulation 
by  which  Hayne  engaged  "  to  demean  himself  as  a 
British  subject  so  long  as  the  country  should  be  covered 
by  the  British  army."  Had  matters  rested  thus  it  would 
have  been  well  for  the  unfortunate  gentleman.  But  from 
some  necessity  of  his  sick  wife  and  children  he  repaired  to 
Charlestown,  presented  himself  to  General  Patterson  with 
the  written  agreement  of  Colonel  Ballingall,  and  solicited 
permission  to  return  home.  This  was  peremptorily  refused, 
and  Hayne  was  told  that  he  must  either  become  a  British 
subject  or  submit  to  close  confinement.     He  was  in  great 


132  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

distress  at  this,  not  on  his  own  account,  for  he  would 
readily  have  submitted  to  the  threatened  imprisonment  had 
it  not  been  for  the  condition  of  his  family.  He  must  return 
to  his  wife,  who  was  supposed  to  be  dying,  and  who  did 
actually  die  shortly  after.  In  this  embarrassing  situation 
he  consulted  with  Dr.  David  Ramsay,  one  of  the  patriots, 
soon  after  sent  into  exile,  and  who  was  subsequently  the 
historian,  and  left  with  him  the  following  paper  declaratory 
of  the  motives  under  which  he  acted  :  — 

"  If  the  British  would  grant  me  the  indulgence  which  we  in  the  day 
of  our  power  gave  to  their  adherents,  of  removing  my  family  and  prop- 
erty, I  would  seek  an  asylum  in  the  remotest  corner  of  the  United 
States  rather  than  submit  to  their  government ;  but  as  they  allow  no 
alternative  than  submission  or  confinement  in  the  capitol  at  a  distance 
from  my  wife  and  family,  at  a  time  when  they  are  in  the  most  need  of 
my  presence  and  support,  I  must,  for  the  present,  yield  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  conqueror.  I  request  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  previous 
to  my  taking  this  step  I  declare  that  it  is  contrary  to  my  inclinations 
and  forced  on  me  by  hard  necessity.  I  never  will  bear  arms  against 
my  country.  My  masters  can  require  no  service  of  me  but  what  is  en- 
joined by  the  old  militia  law  of  the  Province,  which  substitutes  a  fine 
in  lieu  of  personal  service.  This  I  will  pay  as  the  price  of  my  protec- 
tion. If  my  conduct  should  be  censured  by  my  countrymen,  I  beg  that 
you  would  remember  this  conversation,  and  bear  witness  for  me  that 
I  do  not  mean  to  desert  the  cause  of  America." 

In  this  state  of  distress.  Colonel  Hayne  subscribed  a  dec- 
laration of  his  allegiance  to  the  king  of  Great  Britain,  but 
not,  says  Ramsay,  v/ithout  expressly  objecting  to  the  clause 
which  required  him  "  with  his  arms  to  support  the  Royal 
government."  Whereupon  the  commandant  of  the  garri 
son.  General  Patterson,  and  James  Simpson,  the  Inten- 
dant  of  the  British  police,  assured  him  that  this  would 
never  be  required,  and,  it  is  said,  added  further  "  that  when 
the  regular  forces  could  not  defend  the  country  without  the 
aid  of  its  inhabitants,  it  would  be  high  time  for  the  Royal 
army  to  quit  it."     Having  thus  submitted  and  taken  pro- 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  13B 

tection,  Hayne  obtained  permission  to  return  to  his  family. 
The  British  authorities,  however,  did  not  respect  the  reser- 
vation which  he  had  made  in  regard  to  military  service, 
with  the  assent,  as  he  claimed,  of  those  who  took  his  alle- 
giance, but  in  violation  of  it  repeatedly  called  upon  him  to 
take  arms  against  his  countrymen,  and  finally  threatened 
close  confinement  in  case  of  further  refusal.^ 

Affairs  were  in  this  condition  with  Hayne  when  Harden 
appeared  with  his  party  and  established  himself  in  his  im- 
mediate neighborhood.  Hayne,  it  is  said,  regarded  the 
refusal  of  the  British  authorities  to  recognize  the  special 
condition  under  which  he  had  given  his  allegiance  as  re- 
lieving him  from  its  obligation,  and  also  that  Harden's 
appearance  presented  the  condition  under  which  he  had 
been  assured  that  it  would  be  no  longer  binding ;  but  he 
was  not  yet  prepared  to  act  upon  these  views.  He  wavered. 
Harden  had  expected  that  he  would  take  the  field  and  join 
him  and  had  brought  him  a  commission  of  colonel.  By 
Paul  Hamilton,^  one  of  the  party,  and  an  intimate  friend  of 
Hayne,  Harden  sent  to  invite  his  cooperation ;  but  Hayne 
refused  to  receive  the  commission  or  even  to  allow  Hamilton 
a  few  horses,  of  which  he  had  a  fine  stock.  Indeed,  he  in- 
formed Hamilton  that  the  moment  he  heard  of  Harden's 
approach  he  had  ordered  all  his  horses  removed  lest  assist- 
ance might  be  obtained  in  violation  of  his  parole.^ 

Harden  was  very  much  disappointed  at  Hayne's  course, 
and  impatient  under  it.    In  his  letter  to  Marion  he  writes :  — 

"  You  will  receive  a  letter  from  Col.  Hayne  with  the  commission. 
You  will  hear  his  reason  for  not  accepting  it.     This  gentleman  has 

1  Ramsay's  Revolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  277-280. 

2  This  Paul  Hamilton,  who  was  afterwards  Secretary  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  was  a  nephew  of  the  Paul  Hamilton  who  was  one  of  the  addressees 
of  Clinton  and  whose  estate  was  amerced  by  the  General  Assembly  of 
South  Carolina.  «  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  451-452. 


134  HISTOKY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

kept  many  from  joining  me,  and  is  staying  on  too  much  formality. 
I  have  given  the  command  of  the  Regiment  to  Major  Ladson,  who 
turned  out  the  day  I  crossed  the  river,  without  hesitation.  I  hope 
you  will  not  take  it  amiss,  as  Col. wont  be  seen,  and  the  Lieu- 
tenant Colonel,  Saunders,  is  to  the  northward —  Ladson  to  act  as  his 
major  on  his  old  commission.  I  find  the  leading  men  very  back- 
ward, which  keep  many  thus,  so  hope  you  will  send  me  or  some  other 
officer  some  proclamation,  or  orders  what  is  to  be  done.  They  all  say 
they  wait  for  your  army  to  come  their  way,  then  they  will  all  turn  out, 
but  I  found  too  many  of  them  are  waiting  for  commissions  —  they 
can't  turn  out  without,"  etc.^ 

Though  disappointed  in  the  support  which  he  received 
from  the  people  in  the  neighborhood,  Harden  entertained 
no  idea  of  abandoning  this  field.  The  very  day  he  wrote 
the  letter  just  quoted  —  that  is,  Saturday  the  7th  of  April 
—  he  succeeded  in  capturing  a  captain  and  twenty-five 
men  at  a  muster  field  on  the  Four  Holes.^  He  then  pushed 
on  to  another  small  post,  and  on  Sunday  night,  the  8th, 
got  within  six  miles  of  it.  This  was  garrisoned  by  Captain 
Barton  and  six  men.  Major  Cooper  was  detached  by 
Harden  with  fifteen  men,  who  surrounded  the  house  and 
demanded  a  surrender.  This  was  refused,  and  a  fire  opened 
on  the  attacking  party,  a  brisk  fight  ensued,  in  which 
Cooper  was  wounded,  one  of  his  men  killed,  and  another 
wounded.  Barton  was  also  wounded  and  taken,  three  of 
his  men  killed,  and  the  other  three  taken. ^ 

Hearing  that  Colonel  Fenwick  with  a  corps  of  dragoons 
was  at  Pocotaligo,  Harden  moved  at  once  to  surprise  him, 
but  Fenwick  heard  of  Harden's  approach  and  advanced 
to  meet  him.  Harden  attempted  an  ambuscade.  As  the 
advanced  parties  met  he  ordered  his  men  to  turn  into  the 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  1781-82,  50. 

2  Ibid.,  53.  This  date  is  fixed  by  notice  in  The  Boyal  Gazette  of  April 
11th.  From  date  of  Harden's  letter  (18th)  it  would  appear  to  have  been 
the  Uth.  »  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  1781-82,  54. 


IN   THE   HE  VOLUTION  135 

woods,  but  unfortunately  they  went  too  far ;  and  when  he 
attempted  to  bring  them  back  to  an  attack,  they  gave  way 
before  a  charge  of  the  enemy.  Fenwick,  however,  did 
not  pursue  his  advantage,  but  retreated,  leaving  one  man 
killed,  and  having  seven  wounded,  to  which  must  be 
added  two  taken  prisoner  the  next  morning.  Harden  lost 
one  man  taken  and  two  wounded.^  The  Royal  Q-azette 
claimed  that  the  Americans  had  lost  fourteen  killed  and 
wounded  and  some  horses.^  Harden  fell  back  about  ten 
miles  and  rested  a  few  days,  then  rapidly  crossing  the 
Combahee  or  Salkehatchie,  as  the  river  is  here  called,  he 
marched  upon  Fort  Balfour  at  Pocotaligo,  which  he  came 
in  sight  of  at  twelve  o'clock  on  Friday,  the  13th.  At  once 
posting  his  men,  he  sent  ten  of  the  best  mounted  to  draw 
out  the  garrison.  It  happened  that  just  at  this  time 
Colonel  Fenwick  and  Colonel  Lechmere,  another  British 
militia  officer,  were  visiting  their  hospitals  at  Vanbiber's 
house,  a  short  distance  from  the  redoubt.  Harden's  party 
surprised  and  took  them  prisoners  with  seven  dragoons. 
Having  thus  secured  the  principal  officers  of  the  garrison. 
Captain  Harden  was  sent  to  demand  the  surrender  of  the 
fort.  This  Colonel  Kelsell,  who  was  now  in  command, 
refused,  saying  that  he  would  not  give  it  up.  A  second 
demand  was  sent  with  a  message  that  if  he  was  obliged  to 
storm  the  post  he  would  give  no  quarter.  Colonel  Kelsell 
desired  half  an  hour  to  consider  and  Harden  allowed  him 
twenty  minutes ;  at  the  expiration  of  which  the  fort  sur- 
rendered upon  terms.  In  two  hours  the  fort  was  given 
up.  The  garrison,  consisting  of  one  militia  colonel, 
one  major,  three  captains,  three  lieutenants,  and  sixty 
privates,  and  one  lieutenant  and  twenty-two  dragoons, 
marched  out  and  piled  their  arms  outside  of  the  abatis ; 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  1781-82,  54. 

2  The  Boyal  Gazette,  April  11,  1789. 


136  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Harden  and  his  party  marched  in  and  took  possession. 
That  night  and  the  next  day  they  destroyed  the  fort,  as 
they  had  received  intelligence  of  a  relief  for  the  garrison 
coming  from  Charlestown.^  This  proved  to  be  true. 
Colonel  Ballingall  with  100  of  the  Seventy-first,  30  High- 
landers, and  about  40  militia  soon  made  his  appearance. 
Harden  did  not  consider  himself  strong  enough  to  give 
battle  to  this  force,  as  he  had  detached  Captain  Barton  with 
a  party  in  pursuit  of  some  boats  going  up  the  Savannah  to 
Augusta.  Harden  had  thus  secured  100  prisoners  with  their 
arms,  and  the  horses  of  the  dragoons,  and  had  destroyed 
a  British  post  without  the  loss  of  a  man.  In  a  week's 
operation,  with  a  party  originally  but  100  strong.  Harden 
had  broken  into  the  enemy's  lines  in  the  rear  of  Charles- 
town  and  had  in  four  engagements  killed,  wounded,  and 
taken  prisoners  of  the  enemy  as  many  as  he  had  in  his  own 
ranks.  Harden  reported  to  Marion  that  the  enemy  had  left 
Pocotaligo  and  were  then  lying  at  Blake's  plantation,  he 
supposed,  for  some  of  the  Tories  to  join  them.  He  hoped, 
however,  that  but  few  would  do  so,  as  he  had  been  among 
them  and  they  had  all  taken  to  the  swamp.  He  proposed 
to  move  off  southwardly.     He  writes  again :  — 

"  The  men  about  Pon  Pon  are  the  backwardest,  though  when  I  first 
went  there  I  learned  they  were  all  to  be  in  arms  only  waiting  till  they 
could  send  a  man  to  you  for  commissions,  when  they  were  to  turn  out. 
I  beg  you  will  send  some  immediately  with  your  orders,  it  seems  they 
wait  for  Colonel  Hayne's  and  he  says  he  can't  act  without  a  commis- 
sion, and  is  sure  if  he  turns  out  at  least  two  hundred  will  join  him. 
If  so  I  am  very  sure  that  this  part  of  the  country  can  be  held."  ^ 

He  closes  his  letter  with  reporting  he  had  not  yet  heard 
from  General  Pickens.  1 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  1781-82,  54;  The  Boyal  Gazette,  April 
14,  1781. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  1781-82,  53,  55. 


CHAPTER  VI 

1781 

Since  the  1st  of  January,  1781,  the  volunteer  partisan 
bands  of  South  Carolina  under  Sumter,  Marion,  Pickens, 
and  Harden  had  now  added  twenty-six  more  engagements 
to  the  list  of  twenty-six  they  had  fought  in  1780.^  In 
eight  of  these  affairs  the  reported  casualties  among  the 
British  and  Tories  amounted  to  340,  and  in  the  five  in 
which  the  numbers  are  given,  the  Americans  lost  but  53. 
In  those  affairs  in  which  there  are  no  reports  of  casu- 
alties on  the  British  side,  there  was  some  of  the  hardest 
fighting,  as  in  Watson's  engagements  at  Mount  Hope  and 
Black  River.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  therefore,  that  the 
loss  inflicted  upon  the  enemy  in  the  year  1781,  up  to  this 
time,  amounted  to  something  over  500.  And  it  may  be  as 
safe  to  compute  the  loss  of  the  partisan  bands  at  200.  So 
that  in  the  fifty-two  battles,  great  and  small,  which  these 
volunteer  soldiers  in  South  Carolina  had  fought  in  the  ten 
months  from  the  fall  of  Charlestown,  they  had  killed, 
wounded,  and  taken  prisoners  of  the  enemy  at  least  3000, 
at  a  loss  to  themselves  of  about  1000.  Between  Lord 
Rawdon,  at  Camden,  on  the  frontier,  as  it  was  termed,  and 
Balfour's  command  at  Charlestown,  Sumter,  Marion,  and 
Harden  had  worked  up  the  whole  country  from  the  Pee 
Dee  across  the  Santee,  and  Congaree  to  the  Savannah  — 
from  the  Waxhaws  to  Beaufort;  and   now  Pickens  was 

1  See  Tables  of  Engagements  in  1 780,  History  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolii- 
tion,  1775-80  (McCrady),  850-853. 


138  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

hastening  to  bring  into  the  field  the  increasing  friends  to 
the  American  cause  in  Ninety  Six.  But  far  beyond  the 
achievements  which  these  numbers  indicate,  these  volunteer 
soldiers,  with  the  assistance  of  their  brethren  from  North 
Carolina  on  the  one  side  and  Georgia  on  the  other,  had 
accomplished  much  for  the  cause  of  freedom  against  the 
invaders.  They  had,  as  has  been  shown,  by  their  own 
unaided  efforts  broken  up  the  plans  of  the  enemy,  and 
disconcerted  their  schemes  of  campaign  for  the  whole 
country.  The  advantages  of  their  uprising  had  not  been 
confined  to  South  Carolina,  or  even  to  the  South.  It  is 
not  presumptuous  to  say  they  had  done  much  to  save 
Washington's  army  from  destruction  in  the  time  of  its 
weakness,  and  to  render  Yorktown  possible. 

But  notwithstanding  their  unselfish  heroism  and  the  es- 
sential services  they  had  rendered  to  the  country  at  large, 
the  conviction  was  growing  even  among  their  own  leaders, 
and  the  most  patriotic  of  themselves,  that  this  system  of 
warfare  could  no  longer  be  relied  upon,  nor  indeed  could 
it  longer  be  endured.  From  its  very  nature  it  was  pro- 
ductive of  great  evils.  Fighting  without  pay,  clothing,  or 
provisions  furnished  by  a  government  of  any  kind,  their 
necessities  engendered  irregularities  in  the  best  of  their  or- 
ganizations. Serving  as  volunteer  militia,  it  was  impossible 
to  preserve  any  more  discipline  than  their  patriotism  would 
impose  upon  them.  Coming  and  going  from  their  homes 
to  the  battle-field,  compelled  to  be  caring  for  their  families, 
as  well  as  providing  for  their  own  wants,  fighting  to-day 
and  ploughing  to-morrow,  not  even  their  patriotism  could 
afford  the  discipline  necessary  to  an  army.  Then,  be- 
yond these  evils,  which  afflicted  the  virtuous  and  the 
true,  there  was  the  still  greater  evil  that  the  means  of  sup- 
plying the  necessities  of  the  good  soldier  opened  the  door 
to  the  rapacity  and  cruelty  of  the  evil.     There  came  with 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  139 

the  true  patriots  a  host  of  false  friends  and  plunderers. 
And  this  was  true  of  both  sides  in  this  terrible  struggle. 
The  outlaw  Whig  and  the  outlaw  Tory,  or  rather  the 
outlaws  who  were  pretended  Whigs  or  Tories,  as  the  occa- 
sion served,  were  laying  waste  the  country  almost  as  much 
as  those  who  were  fighting  for  the  one  side  or  the  other. 

There  was  no  civil  government  in  the  State  beyond  the 
precinct  of  the  British  Intendant  and  Board  of  Police  in 
Charlestown,  and  they  administered  a  military  rule.^  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge,  embodying  in  himself  all  that  remained  of 
the  civil  power  and  authority  under  the  new  State  constitu- 
tion, wisely  and  properly  remained  beyond  the  limits  of 
immediate  danger  of  capture.  He  had  come  from  Phila- 
delphia with  Gates  in  the  hope  that  the  Continental  army 
would  restore  at  least  a  part  of  the  State  to  his  government, 
and  when  that  hope  was  frustrated  by  the  defeat  at 
Camden,  he  had  retired  to  Hillsboro,  there  counselling  with 
the  authorities  of  North  Carolina  and  the  Congress.  Then 
he  had  come  to  Charlotte  with  Greene,  from  which  point 
he  was  in  close  communication  with  Sumter  and  Marion. 

On  the  8th  of  March  the  Governor  wrote  to  Sumter  from 
the  camp  on  Haw  River,  North  Carolina :  — 

"The  present  situation  of  affairs  rendering  it  impracticable  for  me  to 
return  immediately  into  So.  Carolina,  not  seeing  any  prospect  of  being 
able  to  go  thither  very  soon,  and  it  being  impossible  if  we  s<^  penetrate 
that  country  to  reestablish  the  civil  government  for  some  time;  & 
my  remaining  here  being  of  no  service  to  our  State,  I  have  determined 
to  set  off  in  a  few  days  for  Philadelphia  with  a  view  of  procuring 
if  possible  some  supplies  of  clothing  for  our  militia  (whose  distress 
for  want  of  it  give  me  the  greatest  concern)  and  of  obtaining  such  effec- 
tual aid  as  may  soon  restore  both  Ch«  Town  &  and  the  country  to  our 

1  This  court,  established  by  military  authority,  assumed  civil  jurisdic- 
tion ;  but  after  the  Revolution  it  was  repeatedly  adjudged  an  illegal  body, 
and  all  acts  under  its  authority  void.  —  Brisbane  v.  Lestarjette,  1  Bay's 
Reports,  113. 


1^0  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH   CAllOLTNA 

possession  —  my  utmost  endeavor  for  these  purposes  shall  be  exerted, 
&  I  flatter  myself  that  I  may  succeed  by  personal  application  —  I  am 
persuaded  of  your  utmost  attention  &  that  you  will  pursue  such  meas- 
ures as  may  be  most  serviceable  to  the  State,  &  I  doubt  not  that 
Gen'  Marion  (to  whom  I  have  wrote)  &  Gen'  Pickens  (to  whom  I 
have  spoke  on  the  subject)  will  forward  your  views  to  the  utmost  of 
their  power  —  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  from  you  under  cover  to  Gen' 
Greene  when  any  material  occurrence  offers,  &  shall  write  to  you 
under  cover  to  him  when  I  have  any  material  to  communicate." 

He  promised  to  send  blank  commissions  as  soon  as  he  could 
procure  them,  and  in  the  meanwhile  he  authorized  Sumter 
to  give  brevets,  and  "  in  order,"  he  wrote,  "  that  you  may- 
carry  sufficient  authority  over  the  several  officers  of  your 
brigade  you  may  remove  any  of  them  and  appoint  others 
in  their  stead,  from  time  to  time,  as  you  think  proper."  ^ 
His  Excellency  wrote  a  similar  letter  to  General  Marion, 
indeed  almost  in  the  same  words.  In  the  letter  to  Marion 
he  adds  :  — 

"I  am  persuaded  of  the  continuance  of  your  utmost  attention,  and 
hope  you  will  cultivate  a  good  understanding  with  Gen'ls  Sumter 
and  Pickens,  and  do  everything  in  your  power  to  forward  the  former's 
views,  and  shall  be  glad  to  hear  from  you  when  anything  material 
offers,  under  cover,  to  him,"  etc.^ 

Governor  Rutledge  had  probably  some  good  reason  for 
thus  carefully  enjoining  the  line  of  precedence  and  com- 
munications among  his  generals,  and  urging  a  cordial  co- 
operation between  them,  for  Marion  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  anxious  to  subordinate  his  movements  to  the 
direction  of  Sumter.  The  latter  had  made  strenuous 
efforts  and  earnest  appeals  to  Marion  for  counsel  and  co- 
operation. From  his  camp  at  Friday's  Ferry,  on  the  20th 
of  February,  he  had  written  to  Marion,  "  If  you  can  with 
propriety  advance  southward  so  as  to  cooperate  or  corre- 

1  Sumter  MSS.  2  Qibbes's  Documentary  Hist.^  1781-82,  32. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  141 

spoiid  with  me  it  might  have  the  best  of  consequences."^ 
Again  on  the  28th  he  had  written  :  — 

"Nothing  can  at  this  time  be  more  essentially  necessary  to  the 
interest  of  this  country  than  to  form  a  well-regulated  army  in  the 
interior  part  of  this  State,  while  the  enemy's  principal  force  is  so  far 
removed.  I  hope  it  will  not  interfere  with  any  plan  that  you  have 
laid  to  come  this  way.  From  the  idea  I  have  of  the  state  of  things  in 
this  quarter  I  think  it  expedient  for  you  to  proceed  to  this  place. 
I  shall  wait  impatiently  for  the  happiness  of  an  interview  with  you."  2 

From  the  High  Hills  of  Santee  he  once  more  appeals  to 
Marion  for  an  interview,  adding,  "  You  will  readily  agree 
with  me  that  the  worst  of  consequences  are  to  be  appre- 
hended from  my  having  to  return  without  seeing  you  and 
fixing  upon  a  proper  mode  of  our  future  proceedings."^ 
But  Marion  had  made  no  response,  and  Sumter,  failing  to 
obtain  cooperation  from  him,  had  gone  back  to  the  Wax- 
haws,  whereupon  Rawdon  had  turned  upon  Marion. 

As  he  could  obtain  no  conference  with  Marion,  Sumter 
now  assumed  the  responsibility  of  a  reorganization  of  the 
militia,  under  Governor  Rutledge's  original  instructions 
accompanying  his  commission  as  brigadier  general,  and 
by  which  he  was  especially  charged  to  give  the  strictest 
orders  and  use  the  most  efficient  means  to  prevent  the 
shameful  practice  of  plundering. 

As  the  volunteer,  who  was  always  mounted,  must  be 
supplied  with  food  for  himself  and  forage  for  his  horse,  he 
had  helped  himself  from  the  British  magazines  or  the 
Tory  barns  as  occasion  allowed ;  and  when  these  could 
not  be  drawn  upon,  he  took  from  his  own  friends  what  his 
necessities  demanded.  This  was  not  improper  in  such  a 
warfare,  but  it  was  demoralizing  to  the  troops  and  ruinous 
to  the  country.  Still  more  so  were  the  bands  of  thieves 
and  robbers  which  this  condition  of  affairs  inevitably  pro- 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  1781-82,  23.        2  /^^-^.^  49.        s  ji,i^^^  28. 


142  HISTOKY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

duced  —  men  representing  themselves  now  as  Whigs,  and 
now  as  Tories,  according  as  were  the  parties  to  be 
plundered.  In  regard  to  horses  also  there  was  the  further 
consideration  that,  if  not  taken  by  the  Americans,  they 
would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  British  or  Tories,  and 
supply  their  most  pressing  want.  General  Greene  writes 
to  Sumter,  15th  of  April :  — 

"  Although  I  am  a  great  enemy  to  plundering,  yet  T  think  the  horses 
belonging  to  the  inhabitants  within  the  enemy's  lines  should  be  taken 
from  them,  especially  such  as  are  either  fit  for  the  wagons  or  dra- 
goon service.  If  we  are  superior  in  cavalry,  and  can  prevent  the 
enemy  from  equipping  a  number  of  teams,  it  will  be  almost  impos- 
sible for  them  to  hold  their  posts,  and  utterly  impossible  to  pursue  us 
if  we  should  find  a  retreat  necessary."  ^ 

From  the  "New  Acquisition,"  the  present  county  of 
York,  Sumter  writes  to  Marion,  on  the  28th  of  March,  his 
plan  of  remedying  these  evils  :  ^  — 

"  It  was  exceedingly  mortifying,  after  so  much  pains  taken,  to  be 
deprived  of  a  conference  with  you,  a  circumstance  much  to  be  la- 
mented, as  both  individuals  and  the  publick  are  consequently  much 
injured  thereby.  Your  advice  and  assistance  in  framing,  adjusting, 
and  laying  down  a  proper  plan  of  operation  against  the  enemy  in 
future  might  have  produced  the  most  happy  events.  My  unfortunate 
failing  herein,  and  withal  finding,  contrary  to  my  expectations,  that 
you  had  neither  men  or  supplies  of  any  kind,  and  the  force  I  had 
with  me  but  small  and  from  many  causes  decreasing,  rendered  my 
retreat  at  once  both  necessary  and  difficult.  I  find  that  the  dis- 
orders are  prevalent  in  your  brigade  which  have  for  some  time  been 
practised  in  the  frontiers  with  such  avidity  as  to  threaten  the  State 
with  inevitable  ruin.  To  obviate  which  evil,  as  far  as  possible,  I 
have  adopted  measures  truly  disagreeable,  such  as  can  only  be  justi- 
fied by  our  circumstances  and  the  necessity  of  the  case.  But  it  is 
clearly  my  opinion,  unless  this  or  a  similar  method  be  immediately 
carried  into  effect,  that  neither  the  State  or  the  wealth  thereof  will 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  89. 
a  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  44-46. 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  143 

be  in  the  power  or  possession  of  the  deserving  citizens  after  a  few 
weeks.  The  dissohiteness  of  our  pretended  friends  and  the  ravages 
committed  by  them  are  as  alarming  and  distressing  as  that  of  having 
the  enemy  among  us.  It  is  therefore  necessary  immediately  to  dis- 
criminate who  are  enemies  and  who  are  real  friends ;  the  former 
treated  as  their  business  and  perfidy  authorize  ;  the  latter  to  be  known 
only  by  their  conduct  —  that  is,  by  bearing  arms  and  doing  duty 
when  thereunto  required  by  proper  authority,  and  in  case  of  refusal 
or  neglect  both  person  and  property  to  be  treated  and  dealt  with 
accordingly.  Nothing  can  be  more  unwise  or  impolitic  than  to  suffer 
all  the  wealth  of  our  country  to  be  so  basely  and  unfairly  appropriated 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  accumulating  our  misfortunes,  and  finally  com- 
pleting our  ruin,  which  it  is  in  our  power  at  once  to  check,  if  not  totally 
prevent  the  evils  and  disadvantages  resulting  therefrom ;  to  which  end 
I  propose  raising  several  regiments  of  Light  Dragoons  upon  the  State 
establishment,  agreeably  to  the  enclosed  sketch  of  a  plan  for  that  pur- 
pose. I  therefore  request  that  you  would  be  pleased  to  cause  to  be  im- 
mediately raised  in  your  brigade  two  regiments  agreeably  thereto.  I 
have  also  to  request  that  you  give  orders  and  oblige  every  person  with 
you  to  join  their  proper  regiments  or  brigades,  and  that  none  of  the 
enemy  when  taken  be  paroled  or  set  at  liberty,  but  in  cases  of  extreme 
necessity  —  that  all  the  property  captured  or  taken  from  the  enemy 
be  securely  kept  for  publick  purposes  except  what  is  allowed  to,  and 
appropriated  to  and  for  the  use  of  the  troops  in  service  agreeably  to 
terms  proposed.  Nothing  can  be  more  essential  to  promote  the  hap- 
piness and  secure  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try than  treating  with  the  utmost  severity  all  persons  who  contrary 
to  orders  and  to  the  total  subversion  of  all  authority  take  upon  them- 
selves to  form  parties  to  go  a  plundering,  distressing  the  resources  of 
the  country  necessary  for  the  use  and  support  of  the  army." 

Sumter  at  this  time  was  still  suffering  from  the  wound 
received  at  Blackstock.  He  closes  this  letter  to  Marion 
with  the  observation,  "  I  write  in  so  much  pain  as  hardly 
to  know  my  own  meaning  or  read  what  I  write." 

What  were  the  measures  so  truly  disagreeable  which  he 
directed  Marion  to  adopt  are  not  stated  ;  but  a  letter  writ- 
ten by  Colonel  Richard  Hampton  to  Major  John  Hampton 
just  after,  that  is,  on  the  2d  of  April,  gives  the  terms  upon 


144  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

which  the  new  regiments  were  to  be  organized.     It  is 
as  follows :  ^  — 

"Dear  Brother  —  For  news  I  give  you  the  following,  viz  :  Bro. 
Wade  has  joined  Gen'l  Sumter  and  has  left  all  his  property  in  the 
possession  of  the  British  and  Tories  ;  he  now  fights  them  hard. 
Bro.  Henry  is  raising  a  regular  regiment  of  Light  Horse,  as  also 
Col.  Middleton,  Hawthorn  Hill.  Bro.  Wade,  I  believe,  will  also 
raise  a  regiment.  It  will  not  be  amiss  to  mention  the  terms  on 
which  they  are  to  be  raised  and  the  number  each  regiment  is  to  consist 
of.  The  troops  are  to  enlist  for  ten  months,  each  regiment  to  have  one 
Lieutenant  Colonel,  one  Major,  five  Captains,  ten  Lieutenants.  Each 
company  two  sergeants,  twenty-five  privates,  the  pay  to  be  as  fol- 
lows: Each  Colonel  to  receive  three  grown  negroes  and  one  small 
negro ;  Major  to  receive  three  grown  negroes ;  Captain  two  grown 
negroes ;  Lieutenants  one  large  and  one  small  negro ;  the  Staff  one  large 
and  one  small  negro ;  the  sergeants  one  and  a  quarter  negro.^  Each 
private  one  grown  negro.  And  to  be  furnished  with  one  coat,  two 
waistcoats,  two  pair  overalls,  two  shirts,  two  pair  stockings,  one  pair 
of  shoes  and  spurs,  one  horseman's  cap,  one  blanket,  (and  one  half 
bushel  salt  to  those  who  have  families),  with  two-thirds  of  all  articles 
captured  from  the  enemy  except  negroes  and  military  stores,  and 
salvage  allowed  them  for  all  articles  belonging  to  our  friends  which  we 
may  capture  from  the  enemy,  and  to  be  equipped  with  a  sword,  pistols, 
horse,  saddle,  and  bridle,  &c.  Should  you  meet  with  any  young  men 
who  are  willing  to  turn  into  this  kind  of  service  you  may  assure  them 
that  the  terms  will  be  strictly  complied  with,  and  the  Generail  directs 
that  any  who  think  proper  to  come  out  with  the  wagons  to  join 
the  hard  service  are  to  be  served  with  provisions  for  themselves  and 
horses." 

Earnest  and  sincere  as  Sumter  doubtless  was  in  this 
effort  to  reorganize  the  volunteer  bands  and  to  provide  a 
regular  force  enlisted  for  a  definite  terra  upon  consideration 

1  Gibbes's  Documentarfj  IlinL  (1781-82),  47-48.  MSS.  in  Secretary  of 
State's  office,  Columbia. 

2  Under  ten  years  or  over  forty  was  a  half  negro,  a  full  negro  being 
valued  at  $400.  —Ed.  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  48.  Negro 
slaves  were  regarded  as  subjects  of  spoil  by  all  parties,  the  British  officers 
as  well  as  by  the  Americans,  Continental  and  State  troops. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  145 

of  pay  in  kind  —  negroes  and  salt  —  if  not  in  money,  it  might 
well  have  been  doubted  if  troops  raised  upon  such  terms 
would  prove  better  soldiers  than  the  patriotic  volunteers, 
who  came  and  went  as  the  occasion  permitted,  but  who 
served  for  no  other  reward  than  the  hope  of  obtaining  the 
freedom  of  their  country.  Sumter's  purpose  was  to  secure 
a  body  of  men  enlisted  for  a  definite  period  and  compensated 
for  their  services  in  such  a  manner  as  to  avoid  the  necessity 
of  their  living  upon  the  country  indiscriminately ;  and  then 
to  put  down  all  excuse  for  plunder.  As  there  was  no  organ- 
ized government  to  draft  men,  nor  any  money  with  which  to 
pay  them,  he  proposed  voluntary  enlistment  for  a  share  of 
the  spoils  taken  from  the  enemy  and  salvage  on  property 
rescued  and  restored  to  their  friends.  But  this  scheme  was 
at  last  based  only  upon  organized  plunder  instead  of  private 
robbery.  The  troops  were  to  be  paid  from  what  they  could 
take  from  the  enemy. ^ 

1  Sumter  and  Pickens  each  organized  troops  on  this  plan,  which  was 
known  as  "  Sumter's  law,"  and  in  doing  so  incurred  responsibilities  for 
which  they  were  called  upon  to  answer  when  the  war  was  over.  To  relieve 
them  from  their  liabilities  acts  were  passed  by  the  General  Assembly  in  1784 
to  indemnify  them  and  such  persons  as  had  acted  under  them  "  from 
vexatious  suits  on  account  of  their  transactions  during  the  British  usurpa- 
tions in  this  State"  (Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  IV.  598-601).  Cases  were, 
however,  brought  which  necessitated  a  consideration  of  the  matter  by  the 
courts  of  the  State,  and  in  which  the  judges  repudiated  the  seizures  under 
"  Sumter's  law,"  but  in  which  the  juries  would  not  follow  the  instruction 
of  the  judges.  The  first  case.  Porter  v.  Dunn,  1  Bay's  Reports,  53,  was 
tried  in  1787  before  Judge  John  Eaucheraud  Grimk^,  who  had  been  an 
officer  in  the  Continental  army.  From  the  reports  of  this  case,  we  learn, 
that  it  had  appeared  in  evidence  on  the  trial  that  in  order  to  do  justice  to 
the  officers  and  soldiers  in  the  brigade,  a  commissary  was  appointed  to 
take  custody  of  the  property  seized,  and  also  a  board  of  field  officers 
whose  duty  it  was  to  examine  into  the  claims  of  each  individual  and  like- 
wise into  the  property  taken  ;  and  if  the  property  belonged  to  one  friendly 
to  the  interests  of  the  country,  it  was  restored  to  him  ;  but  if  to  the  enemy 
or  their  adherents,  it  was  delivered  to  the  officers  and  men  in  lieu  of  pay. 

The  case  was  hotly  contested.     General  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney, 

VOL.   IV.  —  L 


146  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Marion  appears  to  have  disapproved  of  the  scheme,  and 
quite  a  sharp  correspondence  passed  between  Sumter  and 

who,  it  must  be  observed,  had  been  in  the  Continental  line  and  not  in  the 
militia  or  volunteers,  appeared  for  Dunn,  from  whom  the  negroes  in  the 
case  had  been  taken.  He  maintained  that  Dunn  had  never  been  divested 
of  his  property  either  voluntarily  or  by  any  competent  tribunal.  That  the 
seizure  of  the  negroes  was  an  unlawful  act  not  warranted  by  the  law  of 
nations  or  any  municipal  law.  He  endeavored  to  show,  that  though  Dunn 
had  at  one  time  been  deluded  and  had  joined  the  British  standard,  he  had 
returned  to  the  American  cause  and  had  since  conducted  himself  as  a  good 
citizen.  But  he  insisted  that  the  property  taken  from  an  open  enemy 
was  not  changed  in  war  until  the  capture  had  been  legally  investigated  in 
some  court  of  competent  jurisdiction,  nor  until  a  condemnation  had  taken 
place.  On  the  other  side  John  Julius  Pringle,  appearing  for  Porter,  the 
officer  who  held  the  negroes  under  an  assignment  from  the  board  of  field 
officers,  urged  that,  though  the  act  of  taking  the  property  was  not  squared 
with  the  nice  rules  of  law,  yet  the  necessity  of  the  times,  the  desperate 
situation  to  which  the  country  was  at  that  time  reduced,  justified  its  policy. 
The  State  was  overrun,  ravaged,  pillaged  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and  its 
defenceless  inhabitants  suffered  every  species  of  injury  and  insult.  It  was 
without  resources  and  without  men  to  defend  it.  New  and  extraordinary 
measures  were  necessary,  and  they  were  adopted.  He  pleaded  the  acts  of 
indemnity  as  sure  and  complete  protection  to  his  client.  That  whatever  was 
irregular  or  not  conformable  to  the  rules  of  war  in  the  conduct  of  the  General 
or  any  of  his  officers  was  cured  and  legalized ;  that  the  property  so  disposed 
of  for  public  use  vested  in  the  persons  to  whom  it  was  delivered.  The  only 
remedy  the  former  proprietor  had  was  by  application  to  the  legislature, 
which  had,  in  many  instances,  when  favorable  circumstances  accom- 
panied the  applicant's  claim,  granted  full  compensation. 

Judge  Grimk^  charged  the  jury  that  the  practice  of  taking  property  from 
an  enemy  was  not  justified  by  the  law  of  nations  or  rule  of  warfare.  That 
it  had  a  tendency  to  promote  licentiousness  in  the  army,  was  discounte- 
nanced by  all  civilized  nations.  Nevertheless,  he  held  that  the  act  of  in- 
demnity protected  the  officer,  and  that  the  former  owner  of  the  negroes 
could  only  look  to  the  legislature  for  compensation.  Under  this  charge  the 
jury  found  for  the  officer.  A  new  trial  was  moved  for  before  a  full  bench, 
consisting  of  Judges  Henry  Pendleton,  ^danus  Burke,  Thomas  Heyward, 
Jr.,  and  J.  F.  Grimk^,  who  granted  a  new  trial  on  the  ground  that  it  teas  a 
hard  case ;  but  upon  the  second  trial,  at  Camden,  the  verdict  was  again  for 
the  officer  and  this  was  acquiesced  in. 

But  the  subject  was  not  yet  closed.    It  was  again  mooted  in  1792,  in 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  147 

himself  upon  the  subject.  This,  however,  originated  in  a 
matter  of  much  less  consequence,  —  a  dispute  between  two  of 
their  officers  as  to  the  regiment  in  which  certain  recruits  were 
to  be  enlisted.  Colonel  Kolb,  an  officer  of  Marion's  brigade, 
complained  that  Major  Snipes,  under  Sumter's  alleged 
authority,  had  taken  some  of  Kolb's  recruits  for  an  in- 
dependent company  Governor  Rutledge  had  authorized 
Snipes  to  raise.  But,  though  originating  in  the  discussion 
of  this  matter,  Sumter  complains  of  Marion's  opposition  to 
the  raising  of  troops  upon  the  State  Establishment  as  he  pro- 
posed, and  resents  the  ground  which  Marion  seems  to  have 
taken  that  there  was  no  authority  for  the  measure.^ 

Sumter's  scheme  was  not  a  success.      He  raised  but  few 

the  case  of  the  Administration  of  Moore  v.  Cherry,  1st  Bay's  Reports,  269. 
In  this  case,  which  was  tried  at  Ninety  Six,  it  appeared  that  the  negro 
was  taken  from  some  persons  called  Tories,  says  the  report,  by  a  scouting 
party  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Brandon,  who  sold  the  property  taken 
and  divided  the  proceeds  among  the  party.  Judge  Grimkg  presided  at  this 
trial,  as  he  had  at  the  former,  and  likewise  charged  the  jury  against  the 
defendant  who  had  purchased  the  negro  from  the  captors,  and  in  favor 
of  the  plaintiff,  the  former  owner.  The  jury,  however,  as  did  the  former, 
found  for  the  defendant.  At  a  second  trial  Judge  Burke,  who  presided, 
charged,  as  had  Judge  Grimk6,  for  the  plaintiff,  but  the  jury  again 
found  for  the  defendant.  An  appeal  was  taken,  and  upon  the  hearing  the 
principal  question  was  whether  a  third  trial  would  be  granted.  John 
Rutledge,  who  was  then  Chief  Justice  under  the  constitution  of  1790,  was 
of  opinion  that,  as  this  was  a  dispute  about  property  taken  during  the  war, 
it  was  best  that  there  should  be  an  end  of  it ;  though  holding  that  it  was 
competent  for  a  court  to  order  a  third  trial,  he  nevertheless  was  opposed  to 
granting  it  in  this  case.  Judge  Waties,  who  had  been  one  of  Marion's  men 
(and  Marion,  it  will  be  recollected,  had  refused  to  act  under  "  Sumter's 
law"),  not  only  maintained  the  power  of  the  court  to  order  a  third  trial, 
but  was  of  opinion  it  should  be  granted  in  this  case  ;  and  in  this  view  Judge 
Bay  concurred.  What  was  the  result  of  the  trial,  if  it  ever  took  place, 
we  do  not  know.  James  Yancey  appeared  for  the  plaintiff,  and  Robert 
Goodloe  Harper  for  the  defendant.  It  is  interesting  that  the  author 
has  before  him  the  original  manuscript  notes  of  argument  of  the  counsel  in 
this  case. 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  65. 


148  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

men  under  it.  Ramsay  observes  that  hitherto  all  of 
Sumter's  enterprises  had  been  effected  by  volunteers  from 
the  militia,  bat  the  long-continued  service  in  the  field 
pointed  out  the  propriety  of  a  more  permanent  corps. 
General  Sumter,  therefore,  in  March,  1781,  with  the  appro- 
bation of  General  Greene,  enlisted  three  small  regiments  of 
regular  State  troops,  to  be  employed  in  constant  service  for 
the  space  of  ten  months.  With  these  and  the  returning 
Continentals,  he  says,  the  war  recommenced  in  South  Caro- 
lina.i  In  regard  to  the  number  of  regiments  in  the  field, 
the  historian  was  undoubtedly  mistaken.  Besides  Marion's 
brigade  on  the  Pee  Dee,  and  the  troops  Pickens  and  McCall 
were  raising  on  the  Savannah,  Sumter  had  with  him  upon 
Greene's  return  to  South  Carolina  the  regiments  of  Taylor, 
Lacey,  Winn,  Bratton,  Hill,  and  Henry  Hampton. 

Wade  Hampton  now  for  the  first  time  appears  in  the 
field  upon  the  side  of  the  Whigs.  Judge  Johnson  men- 
tions him  as  one  of  Sumter's  officers  taken  and  paroled  by 
the  British  at  Fishing  Creek ;  ^  but  this  is  a  mistake. 
Henry  Hampton  was  then  with  Sumter,  Wade  Hampton 
was  not  —  indeed,  as  has  appeared,  more  than  a  month  after 
that  battle,  that  is,  on  the  21st  of  September,  he  declared  him- 
self a  loyal  subject  of  his  Majesty.^  It  is  doubtless  in  allu- 
sion to  this  that,  on  the  2d  of  April,  Richard  Hampton 
writes  to  John :  "  For  news  I  give  you  the  following ;  viz., 
Bro.  Wade  has  joined  Gen^  Sumter  and  has  left  his  prop- 
erty in  the  possession  of  the  British  and  Tories  ;  he  now 
fights  them  hard.''''  Notwithstanding  his  declaration  of  loy- 
alty, it  appears,  from  Johnson's  account,  that  he  had  been 
arrested  for  some  cause,  and  that  a  party  of  twelve  men  were 
taking  him  to  prison,  when,  by  one  of  those  extraordinary 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  227. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  31. 

8  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  729. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  149 

actions  which  characterize  the  men  of  that  day,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  seizing  the  muskets  of  two  of  his  guard  and  over- 
awing the  whole  body,  and  by  his  threats  and  his  known 
character  he  effected  his  escape,  having  with  him  the  weapons 
that  insured  his  safety.  Considering  himself  now  released 
from  his  obligations  to  the  British  authorities,  he  joined 
Sumter.  Johnson  narrates  this  incident  as  if  it  had  taken 
place  before  Sumter's  raid,  in  February,  but  Richard 
Hampton's  letter  of  the  2d  of  April  indicates  that  it  was 
then  of  a  more  recent  occurrence.^ 

The  case  of  Wade  Hampton  was  one  of  many  which 
were  now  giving  great  concern  to  the  British  authorities, 
and  which  were  to  result  in  the  execution  of  the  unhappy 
Hayne.  Upon  the  fall  of  Charlestown  many  of  the  mi- 
litia then  in  the  field,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  accepted 
the  terms  of  surrender  offered  them,  that  is,  the  same  as 
had  been  accorded  the  garrison  of  the  town;  viz.,  that 
they  should  be  permitted  to  return  to  their  homes  as  pris- 
oners of  war  on  parole.  The  militia  accepting  these  terms 
had  been  those  embodied  under  Richardson  and  Kershaw 
in  the  eastern  part  of  the  State,  under  Williamson  and 
Pickens  in  the  western  or  Ninety  Six  District,  and  under 
Bull  in  the  Low-Country.  Though  Bratton,  Winn,  Lacey, 
and  others  had  individually  served  during  the  siege  of 
Charlestown,  the  militia  of  the  upper  country  had  not 
come  out.  While,  therefore,  the  British  held  the  line  from 
Ninety  Six  to  Camden,  and  from  Camden  to  Georgetown, 
few,  if  any,  questions  had  arisen  in  regard  to  the  effect  of 
Sir  Henry  Clinton's  proclamation  revoking  the  paroles  of 

1  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  Traditions,  mentions  the  incident  on  the  author- 
ity of  Colonel  Thomas  Taylor,  but  does  not  give  any  date.  By  his 
account,  Wade  Hampton  was  taken  prisoner  upon  some  occasion,  and 
was  being  taken  under  guard  to  be  placed  in  a  prison  ship,  when  he  thus 
effected  his  escape. 


150  HISTOKY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  militia  who  had  not  actually  served  in  the  garrison  of 
the  towns,  as  the  militia  in  the  upper  country  had  not  been 
in  arms  to  accept  the  terms  and  give  their  paroles.  But 
when  Marion  and  Harden  broke  through  from  the  Pee  Dee, 
and  Clarke  and  McCall  from  the  Savannah,  and  appealed 
to  the  Whigs,  their  former  comrades,  to  arise,  the  status  of 
these  persons  became  of  the  greatest  importance  to  both 
sides.  Were  they  bound  by  the  paroles  they  had  given 
since  Clinton's  proclamation  annulling  the  terms  upon 
which  they  surrendered  ?  If  so,  the  Whigs  could  obtain  no 
recruits  in  the  territory  they  might  recover.  If  not,  the 
British  officers  saw  the  people  within  the  lines  they  had 
hitherto  held  ready  now  to  rise  and  turn  upon  them.  It 
has  been  seen  how  Pickens  had  hesitated,  and  how  strongly 
he  had  been  warned  by  his  friend.  Captain  Ker,  a  British 
officer,  of  the  danger  of  disregarding  his  parole,  and  warned 
of  his  certain  execution  in  case  he  should  unfortunately  again 
fall  into  their  hands.  But,  regarding  the  terms  of  his  sur- 
render as  violated,  Pickens  had  not  been  deterred,  but  was 
now,  though  "  with  a  halter  round  his  neck,"  as  the  phrase 
was,  heroically  and  successfully  fighting  with  his  old  com- 
rades against  the  faithless  enemy.  His  example  had  been 
contagious.  Many  of  the  paroled  militia  were  now  joining 
the  Whig  partisan  bands,  as  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Harden 
penetrated  to  the  rear  of  the  British  lines.  Colonel  Hayne, 
a  man  of  great  influence,  was  going  through  the  same  trial 
which  had  resulted  in  returning  Pickens  to  the  field. 
Lord  Rawdon  and  Balfour  determined  that  a  stop  must  be 
put  to  the  movement. 

The  issue  was  first  made  in  the  case  of  Captain  John 
Postell,  the  officer  of  Marion's  brigade  who  had  made  the 
successful  raid  upon  Monck's  Corner  in  January.  Captain 
Postell  had  been  in  the  garrison  of  Charlestown  during  the 
siege,  and  had  been  paroled.     His  parole,  which  was  simi- 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  151 

lar  in  form  to  that  given  in  a  note  to  a  former  volume/  re- 
quired him  to  remain  at  his  plantation  in  the  parish  of  St. 
Mark's,  in  the  county  of  Craven,  until  exchanged  or  other- 
wise released,  and  pledged  him  that  in  the  meantime  he 
would  not  do  or  cause  to  be  done  anything  prejudicial  to 
the  success  of  his  Majesty's  arms,  or  have  intercourse  or 
hold  correspondence  with  his  enemies. ^  By  the  terms  of 
the  capitulation  it  had  been  stipulated  that  the  militia, 
upon  giving  these  paroles,  so  long  as  they  observed  them, 
should  be  allowed  to  return  to  their  homes,  and  there  to  bo 
"secure  from  being  molested  in  their  property  by  British 
troops."  ^  In  violation  of  this  stipulation  Postell  had  been 
stripped  of  his  property.  "  My  honor  is  all  I  have  left,"  he 
wrote  to  Marion,  "  my  family  has  been  reduced  to  beg  their 
bread."  ^  Considering  himself  released  from  the  obligations 
of  his  parole,  Postell  had  joined  Marion  and  had  become 
one  of  his  most  trusted  officers.  Just  before  Postell's  ex- 
ploit at  Monck's  Corner,  Marion  had  come  to  an  agreement 
with  Captain  Saunders,  commanding  the  British  post  at 
Georgetown,  for  a  partial  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  at 
Postell's  request  Marion  sent  him  with  the  flag  to  deliver 
the  prisoners  on  their  side.  Postell  had  sought  the  mission, 
hoping  to  obtain  the  release  of  his  father,  who  was  a  pris- 
oner in  the  hands  of  the  British.^  The  British  refused  to 
recognize  the  flag  because  it  was  accompanied  by  Postell, 
seized  him,  and  threw  him  into  the  jail  at  Georgetown  as 
a  prisoner  who  had  broken  his  parole.  Marion,  indignant 
at   this   treatment  of  his  flag,  wrote  at  once  to  Captain 

1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  718. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  36. 

*  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  100. 

*  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  86. 

*  James's  Life  of  Marion,  113.  The  author  says  that  Postell  "ob- 
tained leave  to  go  with  a  flag,"  but  is  not  explicit  whether  he  was  himself 
the  bearer  of  it,  or  merely  accompanied  it  —  a  point  of  consequence. 


152  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Saunders,  protesting  against  its  violation.  Postell,  he 
stated,  had  been  sent  by  his  orders  with  a  flag  to  effect  the 
exchange  of  prisoners,  to  which  Saunders  had  agreed ;  he 
was  greatly  surprised  to  find  that  Saunders  not  only  re- 
fused to  make  the  exchange,  but  had  violated  his  flag  by 
taking  Postell  prisoner,  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nations. 
"  I  shall  immediately  acquaint  the  commandant  at  Charles- 
town,"  he  writes,  "and  if  satisfaction  is  not  given  I  will 
take  it  in  every  instance  that  may  fall  in  my  power."  ^  He 
adds : — 

"  I  have  ever  used  all  the  officers  and  men  taken  by  me  with  hu- 
manity ;  but  your  conduct  in  closely  confining  Capt.  Clark  in  a  place 
where  he  cannot  stand  up,  nor  have  his  length,  and  not  giving  him 
half  rations  will  oblige  me  to  retaliate  on  the  officers  and  men  which 
are  or  may  fall  in  my  hands,  which  nothing  will  prevent  but  your  re- 
leasing Capt.  Postell  immediately  and  using  my  officers  as  gentlemen, 
and  your  prisoners  as  customary  in  all  civilized  nations."  ^ 

To  Balfour,  the  commandant  at  Charlestown,  he  wrote 
that,  unless  his  flag  was  discharged,  he  must  immediately 
acquaint  Congress.  He  informed  him  of  the  ill  treatment 
of  other  officers  by  Captain  Saunders,  and  concluded :  — 

"  Should  these  evils  not  be  prevented  in  the  future  it  will  not  be  in 
my  power  to  prevent  retaliation  taking  place.  Lord  Rawdon  and 
Colonel  Watson  have  hanged  three  of  my  brigade  for  supposed  crimes, 
which  will  make  as  many  of  your  men  in  my  hands  suffer.  I  hope 
this  will  be  prevented  in  the  future,  for  it  is  not  my  wish  to  act  but 
with  humanity  and  tenderness  to  the  unfortunate  men  whom  the 
chances  of  war  may  throw  in  my  power." 

To  Watson  he  also  wrote  :  ^  "  The  hanging  of  men  taken 
prisoners  and  the  violation  of  my  flag  will  be  retaliated  if 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  31. 

2  We  have  not  been  able  to  find  further  information  in  regard  to  the 
case  of  Captain  Clark  here  alluded  to. 

3  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  30;  James's  Life  of  Marion^ 
Appendix,  25. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  153 

a  stop  is  not  put  to  such  proceedings,  which  is  disgraceful 
to  all  civilized  nations." 

In  sending  these  letters  Marion  took  the  precaution  to 
send  an  armed  party  along  with  the  flag  to  prevent  any 
further  detention  of  its  bearers.  Though  this  party  was 
attempted  to  be  concealed,  the  British  were  aware  of  their 
presence,  and  Watson,  taking  exception,  sent  his  reply  by  a 
little  boy.i 

"  It  is  with  less  surprise,"  he  writes,  "  that  I  find  a  letter  sent  by 
you  in  all  the  apparent  forms  of  a  flag  of  truce  attended  by  an  armed 
party  who  concealed  themselves  within  a  certain  distance  of  a  place 
that  pointed  itself  out  for  the  delivery  of  it,  than  to  see  the  contents 
of  it  exhibit  a  complaint  from  you  against  us  for  violating  the  law  of 
nations." 

A  considerable  correspondence  ensued,  each  party  charg- 
ing the  other  with  conduct  unbecoming  civilized  warfare. 
In  this  correspondence  two  things  are  noticeable :  first, 
that  Watson,  who  was  regarded  by  the  British  as  one  of 
their  best  officers  and  esteemed  by  the  Americans  for  his 
humanity ,2  defends  the  burning  of  houses  and  property 
of  the  inhabitants  who  were  their  enemies,  notwithstand- 
ing the  distress  it  occasioned  to  women  and  children, 
as  the  custom  of  war;  and  second,  that  Marion  takes  no 
issue  with  Watson  as  to  their  right  to  take  and  to  hold 
Postell  as  a  prisoner  who  had  broken  his  parole,  but  rests 
his  complaint  upon  their  violation  of  his  flag.  "  If  Captain 
Postell  was  a  prisoner,"  he  writes,  "  it  was  no  reason  for 
the  violation  of  my  flag,  especially  when  it  was  sent  to 
exchange  prisoners  agreed  upon  by  Captain  Saunders." 
Watson  held  that  a  flag  of  truce  could  not  cover  one  of 
their  own  men.  Marion  held  that  they  could  not  inquire 
or  know  who  was  under  his    flag  of  truce.     He  did  not 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  33,  38. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  111,  112. 


154  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

meet  the  great  question  at  issue  as  to  the  status  of  those 
who  had  given  their  paroles  and  claimed  now  to  be  released 
from  their  obligations. 

This  correspondence  had  been  carried  on  while  Marion 
and  Watson  were  facing  each  other  across  the  Black  River, 
and,  notwithstanding  it,  Marion  had  allowed  a  pass  to  Nel- 
son's Ferry  for  some  of  Watson's  wounded  men,  and  mat- 
ters may  have  been  in  some  way  accommodated  between 
these  generous  foes  ;  but  Balfour,  the  commandant  of  this 
department,  was  a  man  of  a  different  character.  He  deter- 
mined to  secure  Postell's  person  against  all  chance  of  re- 
lease.    He  writes  to  Saunders  :  — 

"  As  to  Postell,  you  have  done  perfectly  right.  I  have  got  his  pa- 
role which  he  has  broke,  and  which  renders  him  wholly  unfit  to  enter 
any  service,  as  it  entitles  me  to  seize  him  as  our  prisoner  wherever  we 
can  find  him ;  no  sanction  whatever  can  defend  him  against  a  breach 
of  the  parole,  by  which  his  liberty  was  allowed  him,  and  by  trusting 
to  his  honor,  permitted  him  to  use  the  means  of  making  his  escape 
if  he  chose  to  break  it  and  take  the  advantage  of  these  means.  He 
takes  the  chance  of  falling  into  our  hands  and  feeling  the  punishment 
due  to  his  breach  of  the  laws  of  war.  I  wish  you  to  send  him  by 
land,  but  if  inconvenient  you  may  send  him  by  water  in  Dorrell's  ves- 
sel or  any  other  fast  sailer  when  she  returns  with  a  guard ;  but  of  this 
do  as  you  will,  only  be  so  good  as  not  allow  him  to  have  a  chance  of 
escaping.  I  send  you  an  answer  to  a  letter  received  from  Marion  by 
a  flag  of  truce  sent  to  Col.  Watson's  post ;  and  I  also  send  you  a  copy 
of  his  letter  to  me.  In  sending  it  out  be  so  good  as  to  be  careful  who 
you  send ;  a  non-commissioned  officer  will  be  best  for  fear  he  detains 
the  person  sent  on  account  of  Postell,  which  I  forgot  to  mention  to 
you  in  my  last." 

Balfour's  caution  had  come  too  late.  Captain  Saunders, 
less  wary  than  either  Watson  or  Balfour,  had  sent  to 
Marion  a  flag  by  an  officer,  Mr.  Mariott  of  the  Queen's 
Rangers,  whereupon  Marion  seized  and  detained  him  as  a 
hostage  for  Postell's  release.  Balfour  and  Saunders  wrote, 
protesting  against  such  action,  insisting  that  the  cases  were 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  155 

not  similar.  Their  arguments  would  not,  however,  have 
availed;  but  unfortunately  Marion  had  not  a  jail  within 
which  to  cast  Mariott  as  Balfour  had  for  Postell.  He  had 
only  the  insecure  confinement  of  a  guard  in  the  field,  and 
from  this  Mariott  succeeding  in  making  his  escape,  and, 
as  was  claimed  by  The  Royal  G-azette^  taking  off  with  him 
twenty-five  men.  Postell,  on  the  contrary,  underwent  a 
long  and  vigorous  imprisonment,^  which  lasted  indeed  until 
the  end  of  the  war. 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.    (1781-82),    29-43;   James's  Life   of 
Marion,  111-112,  113;  The  Royal  Gazette,  April  4,  1781. 


CHAPTER  VII 
1781 

While  these  events  had  been  transpiring  in  this  State, 
Green  had,  on  the  15th  of  March,  unsuccessfully  fought  the 
battle  of  Guilford  Court-house,  in  North  Carolina.  News 
of  the  battle  appears  to  have  reached  both  parties  here 
about  the  same  time.  The  British  were  greatly  elated  at 
its  result.  The  Royal  Gazette  of  the  28th  states  that  in- 
telligence of  this  important  victory  was  announced  to  the 
public  in  Charlestown  by  the  ringing  of  bells  on  Sunday 
evening  the  24th.  On  Monday  afternoon  the  troops  in 
garrison,  with  the  volunteer  companies,  were  paraded  and 
fired  a  feu  de  joie,  while  guns  in  the  batteries  on  his  Maj- 
esty's ships  and  the  merchant  vessels  in  the  harbor  thun- 
dered a  salute.  The  populace,  said  the  Gazette,  joined  in 
these  military  manifestations  of  joy  by  loud  and  continued 
acclamations.  At  night  a  ball  was  given  at  the  State 
House  by  Mr.  Cruden,  the  commissioner  of  sequestered 
estates,  to  a  numerous  and  brilliant  assembly  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen.  The  ball  lasted  till  the  next  morning,  when, 
the  G-azette  states,  the  company  broke  up,  rejoiced  at  the 
happy  occasion  of  the  meeting,  and  delighted  with  the 
politeness  and  attention  of  the  gentleman  whose  loyalty 
had  called  so  many  persons  together.^ 

1  Tlie  ladies  here  mentioned  were  doubtless  those  of  the  British  officials 
and  Loyalists,  for  Dr.  Ramsay  assures  us  that  those  of  the  Whigs  with- 
stood all  solicitation  to  grace  public  entertainments  with  their  presence. 
Bamsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  123-124. 

156 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  157 

The  Americans  were  equally  disappointed,  but  Sumter 
would  not  admit  defeat.  In  his  letter  of  the  28th  of  March 
he  congratulates  Marion  upon  the  happy  advantage  gained 
by  Major-General  Greene  and  the  army  under  his  command 
over  Lord  Cornwallis  near  Guilford  Court-house.^  And 
though  Greene  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  the  field 
with  the  loss  of  his  artillery,  and  to  admit  a  defeat,  which 
he  attributed  to  the  conduct  of  the  North  Carolina  mili- 
tia, he  still  persuaded  himself  that  the  advantages  re- 
mained with  him.  He  entertained  a  confident  hope  ''  that 
although  his  adversary  had  gained  his  cause,  he  was  ruined 
by  the  expense  of  it,"  ^  and  this  was  in  a  great  measure  true. 
The  British  had  lost  many  more  than  had  his  army,  and 
had  been  able  to  keep  the  ground  only  because  the  Amer- 
icans were  unable  longer  to  contest  it.  Then  Cornwallis 
had  left  the  field  of  action  in  a  movement  which  soon  degen- 
erated into  a  retreat,  scarce  becoming  a  victorious  army  — 
a  retreat  in  which  he  was  obliged  to  abandon  his  wounded, 
and  to  leave  unburied  those  who  died.^  Greene  had  re- 
sumed the  offensive  and  had  pursued  the  British,  but  hav- 
ing been  obliged  to  send  away  the  horses  of  the  militia  for 
the  want  of  forage,  he  had  now  no  mounted  infantry  with 
which  to  support  his  small  force  of  cavalry.  Still  more 
fatal  to  his  recovery  of  the  advantages  lost  at  Guilford  was 
the  refusal  of  the  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  militia 
longer  to  serve  when  their  term  expired  on  the  30th. 
This  caused  a  halt  and  an  abandonment  of  the  pursuit. 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  46. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene.,  vol.  II,  24. 

3  This  is  Sir  Henry  Clinton's  contemptuous  comment  on  Lord  Corn- 
wallis's  victory  at  Guilford  Court-house,  "...  from  3200  when  he  (Lord 
Cornwallis)  passed  the  Catawba  in  January  he  is  reduced  by  sickness  and 
desertion  to  1300,  and  after  the  victory,  which  was  brilliant,  to  700. 
With  those,  without  provisions  or  arms,  he  invites  by  proclamation  those 
poor  people  to  join  him  !  "  —  Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy^  vol.  I,  396. 


158  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Cornwallis  escaped  to  Wilmington,  with  his  crippled,  if 
victorious,  army. 

The  day  after  the  battle  of  Guilford,  Captain  Wade 
Hampton  arrived  in  the  American  camp  there,  and  brought 
to  Greene  information  of  the  movements  in  South  Carolina 
since  he  had  left  the  State,  and  the  following  letter  from 
Sumter,  dated  Waxhaws,  9th  March,  1781. ^ 

"  I  marched  on  Tuesday  the  16th  ultimo  from  the  Catawba  with 
about  two  hundred  and  eighty  men  for  the  Congaree.  I  proceeded 
from  thence  to  the  enemies'  posts  at  Col.  Thompson's,  Nelson's  ferry, 
South  Lake,  etc.,  was  within  fifty  miles  of  Charlestown,  but  finding 
I  could  get  no  assistance  from  Gen^  Marion,  thought  proper  to  re- 
turn, which  I  have  happily  effected  with  very  inconsiderable  loss  — 
as  I  still  labor  under  the  misfortune  of  having  but  little  use  of  my 
right  hand,  and  writing  very  painful,  therefore  not  to  deprive  you  of 
a  full  account  of  my  proceedings  and  any  necessary  intelligence,  re- 
specting the  situation  of  the  enemy  in  So.  Carolina,  I  have  sent  Capt. 
Hampton,  a  valuable  and  intelligent  officer,  w^ho  will  wait  upon  you 
for  that  purpose,  on  whose  information  you  may  rely —  and  to  whom 
you  may  communicate  with  safety  —  he  is  fully  acquainted  with  my 
late  operations  and  partly  with  my  designs  in  future.  Until  your 
pleasure  is  known  notwithstanding  Capt.  Hampton  is  well  acquainted 
with  my  late  proceedings  I  shall  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  transmit 
to  you  a  particular  account  thereof  in  writing  —  a  variety  of  things 
I  could  wish  to  mention  but  fear  you  are  not  circumstanced  so  as  to 
give  me  the  necessary  assistance  I  want,  I  say  nothing." 

The  information  of  Sumter's  movements  contained  in 
this  letter,  and  no  doubt  more  fully  stated  by  Captain 
Hampton,  and  of  the  condition  of  the  British  posts  by  one 

1  Sumter's  letters,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charles- 
ton, 1899,  Appendix,  6-7.  These  are  copies  of  fifty-seven  letters  obtained 
in  1894  by  the  South  Carolina  Historical  Society  from  Mr.  William  Night- 
ingale, of  Brunswick,  Georgia,  in  whose  possession  the  originals  were  held. 
These  letters  were  published  in  the  Charleston  Year  Book  as  above,  but 
we  regret  to  say  very  inaccurately  edited.  Some  of  the  errors  have  been 
pointed  out  in  the  So.  Ca.  Historical  and  Genealogical  Magazine,  vol.  I, 
343-345.     They  will  be  referred  to  as  the  Nightingale  Collection. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  159 

whose  intelligence  could  be  so  thoroughly  relied  upon,  af- 
forded General  Greene  the  best  grounds  on  which  to  decide 
as  to  his  future  measures. ^  How  far  they  suggested  or  in- 
fluenced his  subsequent  conduct  of  the  campaign  we  have 
no  means  of  learning.  Whether  the  course  General 
Greene  adopted  was  the  outcome  of  his  own  thought,  or 
was  suggested  to  him  by  Colonel  Lee,  has  been  the  subject 
of  acrimonious  discussion.  Colonel  Lee,  in  his  Memoirs^ 
without  assuming  the  credit  to  himself,  represents  that  the 
plan  was  that  of  another  than  Greene.  The  proposer,  he 
says,  suggested  that,  leaving  Cornwallis  to  act  as  he  might 
choose,  the  army  should  be  led  back  into  South  Carolina  ; 
that  the  main  body  should  move  upon  Camden,  while  the 
light  corps,  taking  lower  direction  and  joining  Marion, 
should  break  down  all  intermediate  posts,  breaking  upon 
the  communications  between  Camden  and  Ninety  Six 
with  Charlestown,  and  thus  placing  the  British  force  in 
South  Carolina  in  a  triangle,  Camden  and  Ninety  Six  form- 
ing the  base,  insulated  as  to  cooperation  and  destitute  even 
of  provisions  for  any  length  of  time.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  had  been  proposed  to  the  general  to  take  a  more  salu- 
brious and  distant  position,  with  Virginia  in  his  rear,  and 
there  to  await  his  lordship's  advance.  This  was  pressed 
upon  Greene  by  influential  soldiers  around  him,  who  laid  it 
down,  as  a  cardinal  principle  never  to  be  relinquished,  or 
even  slighted,  that  the  safety  of  the  South  hung  upon  the 
safety  of  Virginia,  and  the  sure  way  to  afford  to  that  State 
full  protection  was  to  face  Cornwallis.  They  dwelt  with 
much  emphasis  upon  the  singular  fitness  of  Greene  to  cope 
with  his  lordship,  as  well  as  the  superior  capacity  of  his 
army  to  contend  with  that  under  Cornwallis.^ 

Judge  Johnson  takes  sharp  issue  with  Colonel  Lee  upon 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  32. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  315-322. 


160  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

this  point,  and  insists  that  the  idea  of  the  movements  back 
into  South  Carolina  originated  with  Greene  himself,  and 
claims  for  him  great  merit  for  its  conception  and  execution. 
As  a  commanding  officer  is  responsible  for  the  result  of  his 
movement,  he  is  ordinarily  entitled  to  the  credit  of  it  if 
successful,  whether  originating  with  himself  or  suggested 
by  another.  But  the  evidence  is,  we  think,  conclusive  that, 
with  whomsoever  this  scheme  of  campaign  did  originate, 
it  did  not  originate  with  General  Greene,  nor,  while  adopt- 
ing, did  he  cordially  approve  or  warmly  enter  into  it.^ 
How  far  it  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  report  which 
Wade  Hampton  had  brought  from  General  Sumter  of  the 
operations  of  the  partisan  bands  under  Sumter,  Marion,  Pick- 
ens, and  Harden,  since  Greene  had  left  the  State,  and  their 
great  success  in  breaking  up  the  enemy's  communications 
between  Camden  and  Charlestown,  and  thus  preparing  the 
way  for  such  a  movement,  can  only  be  conjectured  ;  but 
certain  it  is  that  from  Colonel  Lee's  account  the  subject 
was  one  of  discussion  at  headquarters  —  and  upon  which 
there  were  two  parties,  one  urging  a  retreat  to  Virginia, 
and   the   other   an    advance   into   South    Carolina.^     Dr. 

1  In  a  note  to  General  Greene^  in  the  "  Great  Commanders  Series," 
231,  the  author  says :  "  Greene  consulted  Lee  concerning  his  plan  of  oper- 
ation and  probably  referred  to  the  second  Punic  War,  and  the  famous  '  car- 
rying the  war  into  Africa.'  Lee  replied  on  April  2,  '  I  am  decidedly  of 
opinion  with  you  that  nothing  is  left  for  you  but  to  imitate  the  example  of 
Scipio  Africanus.'  In  his  funeral  eulogy  on  Greene,  Hamilton  says,  '  This 
was  one  of  those  strokes  that  denote  superior  genius  and  constitute  the 
sublime  art  of  war.  'Twas  Scipio  leaving  Hannibal  in  Italy  to  overcome 
him  at  Carthage.'  "  But  Scipio  carried  his  heart  with  him  into  Africa. 
Greene  left  his  in  Virginia,  where  he  wished  to  be  confronting  Cornwallis. 

'^  Major  Eggleston,  an  officer  of  the  Legion,  in  a  letter  to  Colonel  Lee 
dated  10th  of  June,  1810,  writes,  "  I  well  recollect  that  I  felt  great  reluc- 
tance to  the  movement  from  Deep  River  to  South  Carolina,  as  I  thought 
it  leaving  our  own  State  [Virginia]  exposed  to  Cornwallis's  army,  although 
the  event  proved  so  fortunate  to  the  cause  of  America."  —  Campaigns  of 
1781  in  the  CaroUnas  (Lee),  242. 


IN    THE    REVOLUTION  IGl 

Mathew  Irvine,  a  surgeon  in  the  service,  states  that  lie 
carried  a  letter  from  Colonel  Lee,  who  was  then  on  a  forag- 
ing expedition,  to  General  Greene,  suggesting  and  urging 
this  movement ;  that  he  was  not  merely  the  bearer  of  the 
letter,  but  was  familiar  with  its  contents  and  in  full  posses- 
sion of  Colonel  Lee's  views,  with  which  he  was  entrusted 
in  order  that  he  might  urge  them  upon  the  general  verbally 
in  case  of  loss  of  the  letter.^ 

General  Greene  followed  Colonel  Lee's  advice,  if  he  did 
not  altogether  adopt  his  views.  Indeed,  a  want  of  final 
decision  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  defects  of  his  mind; 
he  could  never  altogether  help  hankering  after  the  rejected 
alternative: 2  and  so  it  was  that,  throughout  the  ensuing 
campaign  we  shall  find  him  turning  to  and  longing  for  the 
field  of  Virginia  as  the  proper  sphere  of  operations  for  the 
Commander  of  the  Southern  Department.  Nor,  after  his 
defeat  at  Hobkirk's  Hill,  did  he  hesitate  to  blame  Colonel 
Lee  for  his  advice,  and  to  regret  that  he  had  followed  it.^ 

1  Garden's  Anecdotes^  64.  Major  Garden,  it  will  be  recollected,  was 
himself  an  officer  of  the  Legion,  but  not  at  this  time. 

2  Kinglake,  in  his  History  of  the  Crimean  War,  says  of  Lord  Lucan, 
"  He  had  decision,  and  decision  apparently  so  complete  that  his  mind  never 
hankered  after  the  rejected  alternative. "  —  Vol.  II,  380. 

3  The  Honorable  Peter  Johnston  of  Virginia,  Judge  of  the  United 
States  District  Court,  who  had  been  an  officer  of  the  Legion,  in  a  letter 
to  Major  Garden  of  the  11th  of  November,  1821,  writes:  "Nor  has  he 
[Lee]  always  done  justice  to  himself.  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  that  the 
grand  enterprise  for  the  recovery  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  by 
marching  into  those  states  when  Lord  Cornwallis  retreated  to  Wilming- 
ton after  the  action  at  Guilford  Court-house,  was  suggested  by  Colonel 
Lee.  Accident  afforded  me  the  view  of  a  letter  written  by  General  Greene 
to  Colonel  Lee  immediately  after  the  second  battle  of  Camden,  fought  on 
the  25th  of  April,  1781,  in  wliich  the  General  expressed  a  determination  to 
abandon  the  scheme  of  continuing  his  progress  southwardly,  and  directed 
Lee  to  join  him  immediately  with  his  corps,  which  had,  about  that  time, 
reduced  a  post  of  the  enemy  at  Wright's  Bluff  on  the  Santee  River.  I 
shall  never  forget  one  expression  in  that  letter,  which  goes  far  to  prove 
that  I  am  right  in  the  opinion  which  I  have  ever  since  entertained.    *  I 

VOL.   IV.  —  M 


162  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Having  thus  reluctantly  determined  upon  the  movement 
to  South  Carolina,  he  wrote  on  the  30th  of  March  to 
Sumter,  probably  by  Hampton,  giving  an  account  of  his 
movements  since  the  battle  of  the  15th,  and  continuing,  he 
vrent  on  to  inform  him  of  his  proposed  plans :  ^  — 

"  They  [the  British]  are  on  the  route  to  Cross  Creek,  and  prob- 
ably will  fall  down  the  country  as  far  as  Wilmington,  but  this  is 
not  certain.  The  greater  part  of  our  militia's  term  of  service  being 
out  will  prevent  our  further  pursuit,  especially  as  the  difficulty  is 
very  great  in  procuring  provisions.  Indeed,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  subsist  the  army  in  the  pine  barrens,  and  as  we  are  obliged  to 
halt  a  day  or  two  to  collect  provisions  at  this  place,  it  will  give  the 
enemy  such  a  start  of  us  as  leave  no  hopes  of  overtaking  them  if  they 
choose  to  continue  their  flight,  nor  can  we  fight  them  upon  equal 
terms  after  our  militia  leave  us.  All  these  considerations  have  deter- 
mined me  to  change  my  route  and  push  directly  into  South  Carolina. 
This  will  oblige  the  enemy  to  give  up  their  prospects  in  this  State  or 
their  posts  in  South  Carolina,  and  if  our  army  can  be  subsisted  there 
we  can  fight  them  upon  as  good  terms  with  your  aid  as  we  can  here. 
I  beg  you  will  therefore  give  orders  to  Gen^»  Pickens  and  Marion 
to  collect  all  the  militia  they  can  to  cooperate  with  us.  But  the 
object  must  be  a  secret  to  all  except  the  generals,  otherwise  the  enemy 
will  take  measures  to  counteract  us.  I  am  in  hopes  by  sending  for- 
ward our  horse  and  some  small  detachments  of  light  infantry  to  join 
your  militia  you  will  be  able  to  possess  yourself  of  all  the  little  out- 
posts before  the  army  arrives.  Take  measures  to  collect  all  the  pro- 
visions you  can,  for  on  this  our  whole  operation  will  depend.     I 

fear,  my  friend,  says  the  general,  '  that  I  have  pursued  your  advice  too 
far.  I  have  resolved  to  march  hack  with  the  army  towards  Virginia,  and 
desire  you  will  join  me  with  your  command  as  soon  as  possible.'"  — 
Charleston  City  Gazette  of  the  11th  of  May,  1822.  Republished  in  Lee's 
Campaigns  in  the  Cai'olinas,  399-401 ;  also  quoted  in  Garden's  Anecdotes., 
C4.  "  The  letter,"  says  Garden  (ibid.),  "  mentioned  by  Judge  Johnston 
was  seen  also  by  Dr.  Irvine.  He  states  that  the  general  added,  ♦  Although 
I  am  confident  that  your  wish  was  to  give  increase  to  my  military  reputa- 
tion, yet  it  is  evident  to  me  that  by  listening  to  your  advice  I  have  forfeited 
my  pretensions  to  it  forever.'" 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  85. 


IN   THE  BEVOLUTION  163 

expect  to  be  ready  to  march  in  about  five  days,  and  perhaps  we  may  be 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Camden  by  the  20th  of  next  month  or  earlier." 

In  this  letter  it  is  said  that  Greene  sedulously  inculcated 
secrecy,  and  enjoined  that  his  purpose  should  be  com- 
municated to  none  but  his  generals/  that  Sumter  was  the 
only  officer  in  the  Southern  country  to  whom  General 
Greene  confided  his  intention  of  penetrating  into  South 
Carolina  prior  to  his  actual  movement  ;2  and  the  implication 
is  pointed  that  Sumter  was  in  some  way  responsible  that 
the  secret  was  divulged.  Colonel  Lee,  however,  states  that 
before  Greene's  departure  from  Deep  River  he  had  commu- 
nicated his  plans  to  Pickens  as  well.^  And  Ramsay  asserts 
the  same.*     He  certainly  did  so  to  Marion. 

It  was  on  the  7th  of  April  that  he  broke  up  his  camp 
at  Ramsay's  Mill,  on  Deep  River,  and  commenced  his 
march  to  South  Carolina.^  Three  days  before,  that  is,  on 
the  4th,  he  writes  to  Marion  from  his  camp  on  Deep 
River.6 

"This  will  be  handed  to  you  by  Cap*  Conyers,  who  will  inform 
you  what  we  have  contemplated.  He  is  sent  forward  to  collect 
provisions  for  the  subsistence  of  the  army,  and  I  beg  you  will  assist 
him  in  this  necessary  business.  The  army  will  march  to-morrow,  and 
I  hope  you  will  be  prepared  to  support  its  operation  with  a  consider- 
able force.  General  Sumter  is  written  to,  and  I  doubt  not  will  be 
prepared  to  cooperate  with  us,  etc." 

Nor  only  so.  The  day  that  he  commenced  his  march  he  sent 
on  Major  Hyrne  in  advance  with  a  letter  requesting  Sum- 
ter to  inform  that  officer  of  what  he  might  expect  from  him 
in  the  way  of  assistance.^  Colonel  Davie,  Colonel  Carring- 
ton,  and  Captain  Singleton  of  the  general's  staff  were  all 

J  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  34.  a  lUd.^  68. 

»  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  325. 

*  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  227. 
6  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  44. 

•  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  48.         7  Sumter  MSS. 


164  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

informed  of  his  purpose,^  as  doubtless  was  necessary  and 
proper.  So  far,  therefore,  from  Sumter  being  the  only 
officer  in  the  Southern  country  informed  of  Greene's  pur- 
pose, not  only  were  Marion  and  Pickens  also  directly 
informed  of  it,  but  several  subordinate  officers  as  well.  If 
Greene's  plans  were  divulged,  it  is  unjust  therefore  to 
charge  Sumter  with  the  fault  on  the  ground  that  to  him 
alone  they  had  been  confided.  In  the  condition  of  the 
country  it  was  impossible  that  any  such  hopes  as  Greene 
indulged  as  to  the  secrecy  of  his  movements  could  have 
been  realized.  Sumter's  critic.  Judge  Johnson,  himself 
gives  the  reason.  "  The  country,"  he  says,  "  from  which 
he  had  marched  and  that  through  which  he  had  marched, 
was  too  much  infested  with  Loyalists  to  admit  of  his  mak- 
ing a  single  movement  unobserved.  Runners  from  the 
Tories  had  preceded  him  six  days,  and  long  enough  to 
enable  the  commander  of  the  garrison  at  Camden,  Lord 
Rawdon,  to  summon  to  his  aid  a  considerable  body  of  Loyal- 
ists and  recruits  under  Major  Frasier,  from  the  banks  of  the 
Saluda  and  Broad  rivers ;  and  to  his  great  mortification 
Greene  found  that  the  garrison  of  Camden  was  fully  equal 
to  the  force  he  had  brought  against  it.  Still,  however,  he 
advanced,  bent  on  an  attempt  to  carry  the  post  by  assault, 
when,  on  reconnoitring,  he  found  that  his  force  was  wholly 
inadequate  to  the  purpose."  ^ 

It  will  be  recollected  that  there  had  already  been  a  jar 
between  Greene  and  Sumter,  because  of  orders  given  to 
Sumter's  command  without  communicating  them  to  or 
through  him ;  that  Sumter  had  resented  thus  being  passed 
over  and  ignored,  and  had  complained  of  it  both  to  General 
Greene  and  Governor  Rutledge.  Upon  setting  out  to 
Philadelphia,  Governor  Rutledge,  it  will  also  be  remem- 
bered, had  again  left  Sumter  in  command  of  all  the  militia  of 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  67.  ^  Ibid.,  45. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  165 

the  State,  enjoining  upon  both  Marion  and  Pickens  their  obe- 
dience to  him,  and  requiring  that  all  communications  from 
them  should  be  sent  under  cover  to  Sumter,  which  Sumter 
should  forward  under  cover  to  General  Greene.  The  gov- 
ernor had  thus  left,  as  he  hoped,  matters  in  such  order  as 
to  prevent  any  friction  in  the  future  between  these  officers. 
Marion,  it  has,  however,  been  seen,  had  paid  very  little  atten- 
tion to  these  instructions,  and  Sumter  had  again  had  cause 
to  complain  of  the  neglect  of  his  authority.  Greene's 
course  now  tended  to  aggravate  this  trouble.  In  his  letter 
of  the  30th  he  had  expressly  put  the  preparatory  move- 
ments in  South  Carolina  into  Sumter's  hands.  He  had 
written,  "  /  leg  you  will  therefore  give  orders  to  G-enerals 
Pickens  and  Marion  to  collect  all  the  militia  they  can  to 
cooperate  with  us.^^  The  object  was  to  be  kept  secret  to 
all  but  the  generals.  "I  am  in  hopes,"  he  wrote,  "that 
by  sending  forward  our  horse  and  some  small  detach- 
ments of  light  infantry  to  join  your  militia  you  will  he  able 
to  possess  yourself  of  their  little  outposts  before  the  army 
arrives.^"* 

Sumter  undoubtedly  had  a  right  to  regard  himself  under 
this  letter,  independently  of  his  command  of  all  the  militia, 
as  charged  with  the  movements  in  South  Carolina  before 
the  arrival  of  Greene  with  his  army.  This  supposition 
must  have  been  further  confirmed  upon  the  arrival  of 
Major  Hyrne  with  another  letter  from  Greene,  of  the  7th  of 
April,  saying,  "  This  will  be  handed  you  by  Major  Hyrne, 
who  has  been  kind  enough  to  come  on  before  the  army, 
which  is  on  the  march  for  South  Carolina,  to  see  and  con- 
sult with  you  respecting  the  force  you  are  likely  to  collect 
to  aid  our  operations."^ 

Acting  upon  this  supposition,  Sumter  appears  to  have 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  8(5, 
87. 


166  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

entered  eagerly  into  the  general's   plans.     He  wrote  on 
the  9th,  at  once,  in  reply:  ^  — 

"...  Thursday  next  I  should  have  had  five  hundred  ten-months 
men  in  the  field,  chiefly  so  well  mounted  as  to  perform  tolerable 
service,  and  from  the  activity  of  the  enemy  &  indiscression  (?)  of 
our  militia,  I  think  all  the  men  that  can  by  any  j  iistifiable  method 
be  procured  will  not  be  too  many. 

"  Gen'  Pickens  men  are  much  scattered.  He  will  have  but  few 
out,  that  is,  in  any  short  time.  I  expect  four  or  five  hundred  will  be 
ready  to  join  you  out  of  Gen'  Marions  brigade.  I  have  requested 
him  to  take  a  position  high  up  Black  river  if  it  can  be  done  with  safety, 
to  prevent  the  enemy  from  foraging  that  way  to  have  as  much  provision 
as  possible  provided.  .  .  . 

"  Nothing  in  the  summit  of  power  shall  be  neglected  that  may  in 
the  least  tend  to  further  your  operations  against  the  enemy." 

As  it  became  a  matter  of  much  discussion  thereafter  as 
to  the  number  of  men  Sumter  had  promised  to  bring  to  the 
support  of  Greene,  it  is  well  now  to  observe  that  Sumter  in 
this  letter  reports  that  he  will  have  five  hundred  ten-months 
men  in  the  field,  capable  of  tolerable  service,  and  that  he 
expected  four  or  five  hundred  would  be  ready  to  join  out 
of  Marion's  brigade.  From  Pickens  he  could  hope  for  but 
few.  All  that  Sumter  hoped  that  he  could  get  were  one 
thousand  men,  including  Marion's.  This  letter  Greene  re- 
ceived, probably  by  Major  Hyrne.  On  the  14th  he  wrote 
to  Sumter :  — 

"  I  received  your  letter  dated  the  seventh  instant  and  am  happy  to 
understand  that  our  plan  of  operations  agrees  with  your  sentiments. 
You  will  collect  your  force  with  all  possible  speed  and  endeavor  to 
take  a  position  as  mentioned  hy  you  to  Major  Hyrne  where  you  may  be 
enabled  to  cut  off  or  intercept  the  communication  between  Camden 

1  Nighthigale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1890,  Appen- 
dix, 7-8.  This  letter  was  undoubtedly  received  by  Greene,  for  it  is  found 
among  his  papers,  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Nightingale,  but  its  receipt 
is  not  acknowledged.  Greene  on  the  14th  acknowledges  a  letter  of  the 
7th  which  is  not  found  among  his  papers. 


IN  THE  IlEVOLUTION  167 

and  the  other  posts  of  the  enemy,  keeping  it  in  your  power  to  cooper- 
ate with  or  join  this  command  should  the  movements  of  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  render  such  measures  necessary,"  etc.^ 

Sumter,  it  is  thus  seen,  was  not  only  put  in  charge  of  the 
movement,  but  his  plan  of  it  was  accepted.  What  must 
have  been  his  surprise  and  mortification,  then,  to  learn  that 
the  ''horse  and  some  small  detachments  of  light  infantry" 
which  had  promised  to  join  his  militia  so  as  to  enable  him 
to  take  the  outposts  of  the  enemy,  without  his  knowledge 
or  any  notification  to  him,  had  been  sent  forward  as  early  as 
the  4th  of  April,  not  to  him  —  but  to  Marion?  Was  it  to 
be  supposed  that  Sumter,  with  his  quick  and  impetuous 
temper,  would  not  have  resented  such  trifling  with  his 
confidence  and  disregard  alike  of  the  assurances  given 
him  and  of  his  authority  as  Marion's  commanding  officer? 

It  has  been  charged  by  Colonel  Lee  that  General  Greene 
expected  to  be  joined  by  General  Sumter  before  Camden; 
but  that  Sumter  held  off,  much  to  the  surprise,  regret,  and 
dissatisfaction  of  the  General-in-chief,  and  very  much  to 
the  detriment  of  his  plans  and  measures.^  And,  strange  to 
say,  Johnson  countenances  this  charge  in  a  summary  of  the 
grounds  of  complaint  which  Greene  entertained  against 
Sumter,^  forgetting,  apparently,  that  in  previous  pages  he 
had  himself  shown  how  unwarranted  were  these  jealousies 
of  Sumter's  conduct.^  Colonel  Lee  himself  had  undoubt- 
edly been  misled  by  General  Greene  as  to  the  force  Sumter 
had  undertaken  to  raise.  On  the  10th  of  April  the  General 
had  written  to  Lee,  then  on  his  march  to  join  Marion, 
"  General  Sumter  will  have  one  thousand  men  to  join  us."  ^ 

I     1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  87,  88. 
2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  333. 
8  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  212. 
4 /&iU,  107-109. 
s  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  51. 


168  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

But  Johnson  shows  that  in  this  Greene  had  made  a  great 
mistake.  He  says  that  it  was  on  Hyrne's  report  and  Sum- 
ter's letter  of  the  7th  that  General  Greene  founded  his  ex- 
pectation that  Sumter  would  be  able  to  bring  one  thousand 
men  into  the  field ;  but  that,  on  comparing  the  two  docu- 
ments, it  is  found  that,  while  they  agree  as  to  the  number, 
in  Sumter's  letter  four  or  five  hundred  of  the  one  thousand 
are  expressly  made  to  consist  of  the  men  to  be  brought  out 
under  Marion  and  five  hundred  of  his  own  brigade.^  Sumter 
hoped  to  have  this  number  of  the  ten-months  men  he  was 
attempting  to  raise  on  the  bounty  of  a  prime  negro  per 
man,  for  which  purpose  he  had  his  best  officers  actively 
engaged  in  procuring  enlistments  in  both  States  along  the 
Catawba.  Hyrne's  report  says,  "  General  Sumter  expects 
by  Monday  (the  18th)  to  have  upwards  of  two  hundred 
ten-months  men  from  South  Carolina,  and  three  hundred 
from  North  Carolina;  these  are  immediately  to  join  the 
militia,  who  will  amount  to  about  five  hundred,  and  pro- 
ceed down  the  country,"  but  makes  no  mention  of  four  or 
five  hundred  expected  under  Marion. ^  Greene,  apparently 
without  observing  the  discrepancy  between  Sumter's  own 
letter  and  Hyrne's  report,  or  that  Hyrne's  report  did  not 
mention  Marion,  assumed,  against  the  expressed  statement 
of  Sumter's  letter  of  the  7th,  that  Sumter  promised  himself 
to  bring  one  thousand  men  to  his  assistance.  Not  only 
counting  upon  this  himself,  he  writes  it  to  Lee.  Hyrne 
had  also  anticipated  by  two  the  day  upon  which  Sumter 
had  fixed  as  the  time  when  he  hoped  to  have  this  reenforce- 
ment.  Promising  the  most  zealous  cooperation,  Sumter 
did  not  express  a  hope  that  he  would  be  able  to  take  the 
field  before  the  20th.  Opposition,  it  seems,  was  made  to 
his  enlisting  men  in  North  Carolina,  professedly  on  the 
ground  of  its  interfering  with  the  draft  then  going  on  in 
Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  107.  ^  xhid. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  169 

that  State,  but  really,  as  Sumter  asserted,  because  it  raised 
the  price  of  substitutes.  Greene  was  no  doubt  disappointed 
by  not  receiving  earlier  support  from  Sumter,  but  Johnson 
admits  that  no  suggestion  of  a  suspicion  can  be  found  that 
it  was  not  as  sensibly  felt  by  Sumter  himself. 

We  would  call  attention  here,  again,  as  we  may  have  still 
further  occasion  to  do,  to  the  extraordinary  mistake  or  mis- 
conception of  Greene,  exhibited  again  and  again  during  his 
campaign,  in  failing  to  recognize  and  appreciate  the  con- 
dition of  affairs  in  South  Carolina,  and  Sumter's  position 
and  power.  From  his  first  entry  into  the  State  he  persisted 
in  treating  Sumter  as  having  the  power  to  bring  out  as 
many  men  as  he  desired,  as  if  he  had  a  settled  government 
behind  him  through  which  he  could  draft  militia  and  en- 
force the  attendance  of  those  drafted  to  the  army ;  whereas, 
the  fact  was,  that  there  was  no  government  in  South  Caro- 
lina at  the  time,  and  that  it  was  only  through  the  personal 
influence  of  Sumter,  Marion,  Pickens,  and  other  leaders, 
appealing  to  the  patriotism  of  the  Whigs,  that  these  could 
be  brought  into  the  field,  and  then  only  as  volunteers  and 
not  as  drafted  men.  It  was  impossible,  therefore,  for  Sumter 
to  undertake  or  promise  to  furnish  any  given  number  of 
men,  and  it  is  strange  indeed  that  Greene  should  have  sup- 
posed that  he  did  so,  and  counted  upon  them  as  he  claims 
to  have  done. 

So,  too,  with  regard  to  provisions.  Greene  had  solicited 
Sumter  to  take  measures  to  collect  all  that  he  could,  for  on 
this  his  whole  operations  would  depend;  and  Sumter  had 
made  every  endeavor  to  do  so  through  the  officers  who  com- 
manded where  the  provisions  were  sought,  but  he  constantly 
declared,  as  was  unquestionably  the  fact,  that  all  the  pro- 
visions were  within  the  enemy's  lines. ^ 

Although  disappointed  greatly  in  the  number  of  men 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  108. 


170  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

and  the  provisions  he  expected  to  collect,  Sumter  actually 
commenced  operations  by  the  time  he  had  promised.  It 
has  been  charged  that,  instead  of  descending  between  the 
Broad  and  Catawba  rivers,  he  moved  down  beyond  the 
Broad  River.^  Upon  what  this  criticism  is  based  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  understand,  as  there  was  no  outpost  to  attack 
between  these  rivers,  and  it  is  certain  that  Sumter  was 
never  ordered  to  form  a  junction  with  Greene  prior  to 
the  affair  at  Camden.^  The  position  he  was  to  take  was 
determined  upon  in  consultation  between  Hyrne  and  him- 
self, and  was  doubtless  that  mentioned  with  approval  by 
Greene  in  a  letter  to  Lee  of  the  10th  of  April,  as  "a 
position  between  Camden  and  Ninety  Six  about  thirty 
miles  from  the  former."^  From  this  post  Sumter  soon 
swept  the  country  between  the  Broad  and  the  Saluda,  as 
well  as  between  the  Broad  and  the  Wateree. 

We  left  Marion,  it  will  be  remembered,  after  the  affair 
at  Witherspoon's  Ferry,  on  the  point  of  retreating  into 
North  Carolina  for  the  want  of  ammunition,  a  step  which 
had  only  been  arrested  by  the  news  of  the  approach  of 
Colonel  Lee,  the  advance  of  General  Greene,  upon  his 
return  to  South  Carolina.  While  Marion  was  in  the  great- 
est despondency  from  this  cause,  and  about  to  retreat  to 
North  Carolina,  one  Johnson,  an  old  tried  Whig,  came  into 
the  camp  in  an  almost  starving  condition,  begging  for 
God's  sake  for  something  to  eat.  A  pot  of  cold  rice  was 
put  before  him,  and  when  his  hunger  was  somewhat 
allayed  he  was  asked  the  news.  "  Fine  news,"  said  he ; 
"  I  saw  a  great  number  of  Continental  troops,  horse  and 
foot,  crossing  at  Long  Bluff."  "  Come,  tell  the  general," 
said  Captain  Gavin  Witherspoon.    "  No,"  replied  the  Whig. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  212. 

2  lua,^  109. 

8  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  51. 


IN   THE   EEVOLUTION  171 

"  I  am  starving  with  hunger ;  if  the  general  wants  the  news, 
he  must  come  to  me."  The  general  soon  complied,  and 
going  to  the  hungry,  but  true  and  tried,  bearer  of  the  good 
tidings,  he  soon  satisfied  himself  of  tlie  truth  of  the  infor- 
mation. The  news,  says  James,  was  sudden  and  unex- 
pected, and  to  men  now  in  a  state  of  desperation  nothing 
could  be  more  transporting  — scarce  was  there  a  dry  eye. 
All  sufferings  appeared  now  to  be  at  an  end,  and  that  balm 
of  the  soul,  hope,  began  to  revive.  Even  while  Johnson 
was  still  communicating  his  intelligence,  it  was  confirmed 
by  the  sound  of  an  approaching  drum.^  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Lee,  when  within  a  day's  march  of  the  Pee  Dee,  had  de- 
spatched a  small  party  of  dragoons  under  Captain  Conyers 
to  find  Marion.  By  Conyers,  Marion  received  Greene's 
letter  ordering  him  to  cooperate  with  Lee  in  striking  at  the 
posts  below  Camden.  Marion  received  Lee's  officer  with 
joy,  and  furnished  boats,  which  he  had  kept  concealed  on 
the  Pee  Dee,  for  the  transportation  of  his  corps  across  the 
river.     On  the  14th  of  April  Lee  joined  the  general. 

Colonel  Watson,  it  will  be  remembered,  upon  Sumter's 
retreat  to  the  Waxhaws  in  March,  had  been  sent  by  Lord 
Rawdon  with  his  own  regiment  and  Harrison's  Tories, 
numbering  in  all  about  five  hundred  men,  to  crush  out 
Marion.  This,  however,  he  had  not  accomplished.  On 
the  contrary,  Marion  had  assumed  the  offensive,  and  had 
fought  him  at  Wiboo  Swamp,  Mount  Hope,  and  Black 
River,  and  had  finally  driven  him  into  Georgetown.  Hav- 
ing refreshed  himself  at  Georgetown,  Watson  had  pro- 
ceeded again  towards  the  Pee  Dee.  He  had  taken  the 
nearest  route,  across  Black  River  at  Wragg's  Ferry,  the 
Pee  Dee  at  Euhany,  and  the  Little  Pee  Dee  at  Potatobed 
Ferry,  and  had  halted  at  Catfish  Creek,  a  mile  from  where 
the  town  of  Marion  now  stands.  Here  Gainey's  party 
1  James's  Life,  of  Marion,  107. 


172  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

flocked  to  him  in  such  numbers  that  he  was  soon  nine  hun- 
dred strong.i  Leaving  Captain  Witherspoon  with  a  small 
party  to  watch  Watson,  Marion  and  Lee  moved  through 
Williamsburg  and  took  position  in  the  open  country  with 
Watson  to  their  left,  considerably  below  them,  and  on  the 
route  for  the  fort  at  Wright's  Bluff,  called  by  his  name. 
But  Watson,  having  learned  of  Lee's  approach  through 
Captain  John  Brockington,  a  noted  Tory,  about  the  same 
time  as  Johnson,  the  Whig,  had  informed  Marion,  had 
immediately  rolled  his  two  field-pieces  into  Catfish  Creek, 
destroyed  all  his  heavy  baggage,  recrossed  the  Little 
Pee  Dee,  and  not  venturing  by  the  route  he  came,  he 
crossed  the  Waccamaw,  and  retreating  between  that  river 
and  the  sea,  crossed  Winyaw  Bay  three  miles  west,  and 
then  returned  again  to  Georgetown.^ 

Upon  the  junction  with  Colonel  Lee,  Marion  proposed 
to  pursue  Watson,  and  if  unable  to  capture  him,  at  least  to 
prevent  his  junction  with  Lord  Rawdon ;  but  Lee  was  of 
opinion  that  the  pursuit  would  carry  them  too  far  from 
General  Greene,  who  was  marching  upon  Camden.  Marion 
gave  up  the  movement  with  great  reluctance,  and  was 
afterwards  heard  repeatedly  to  regret  that  his  orders  had 
not  allowed  him  to  pursue  it.  A  great  consideration, 
however,  against  Marion's  plan  and  in  favor  of  another, 
was  the  fact  that  both  Lee  and  himself  were  in  great  want 
of  ammunition,  and  an  opportunity  presented  itself  of  sup- 
plying themselves  in  this  particular  from  Fort  Watson, 
into  which,  it  will  be  remembered,  the  supply  obtained  by 
Sumter  in  March  had  been  taken  through  the  treachery  of 
a  guide.  Fort  Watson  Avas  known  to  be  otherwise  well 
supplied  in  this  essential  article,  and  was  now  with  but 
a  small  garrison  in  the  absence  of  its  commander,  who 
had  retreated  to  Georgetown.  Still  another  advantage  pre- 
1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  108.  2  xj^i^^  ^  106. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  173 

sented  itself  to  a  movement  against  the  fort  instead  of  a 
pursuit  of  the  commander,  and  that  was  that  at  the  fort 
they  would  be  on  the  road  by  which  Watson  was  expected 
to  move  to  rejoin  Lord  Rawdon  —  there  being  then  no 
road  from  Kingstree  to  Camden.^ 

In  the  estimate  of  one  thousand  men  which  Sumter  had 
reported  to  General  Greene  he  hoped  to  raise  to  join  him, 
he  had  counted  upon  Marion's  having  from  four  to  five 
hundred ;  but  so  far  from  this,  so  many  of  Marion's  men 
had  gone  home  to  rest  and  to  plant  their  crops,  after 
the  operations  against  Doyle  and  Watson,  that  he  was 
reduced  to  but  eighty  men  when  Lee  joined  him.^  Lee's 
Legion  corps  numbered  about  three  hundred  horse  and 
foot.^  The  combined  force  thus  numbered  about  380. 
Marion's  men  were,  however,  coming  in  one  or  two  at  a 
time.  With  this  force  the  two  leaders  determined  to  carry 
Fort  Watson  without  delay,  and  sat  down  before  it  early 
in  the  evening  of  the  15th  of  April,  not  doubting  from 
their  information  that  the  garrison  must  soon  be  compelled 
to  surrender  for  want  of  water,  with  which  it  was  only  sup- 
plied from  Lake  Scott,  and  from  which  it  might  be  readily 
and  effectively  excluded.  The  garrison  consisted  of  about 
eighty  regular  troops  and  forty  Loyalists,  under  the  com- 
mand of  a  brave  and  efficient  officer.  Lieutenant  James 
McKay.*  Fort  Watson,  as  the  post  at  Wright's  Bluff  was 
called,  from  which  Sumter  had  lately  been  repulsed,  was 
an  Indian  mound  at  least  thirty  feet  high,  surrounded  by 
a  plain  table-land  and  far  removed  from  any  ground  that 
could  command  it.  In  a  very  few  hours  the  customary 
mode  of  obtaining  water  was  completely  stopped,  and  had 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  109. 

« Ibid. 

8  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  333. 

*  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  70. 


174  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  information  upon  which  Marion  and  Lee  acted  been 
correct,  a  surrender  of  the  garrison  could  not  long  have 
been  delayed.  But  McKay  was  an  officer  of  resource  as 
well  as  of  courage,  and  he  immediately  cut  a  trench  secured 
by  abatis  from  his  fosse  to  the  river  which  passed  close  to 
the  Indian  mound.  Neither  party  possessed  artillery,  and 
the  steep  sides  of  the  mound  and  strong  palisades  forbade 
an  attempt  at  storming  it.  Marion  and  Lee  had  nothing 
else  to  do,  therefore,  but  to  sit  down  to  an  investment  of  the 
place  and  thus  lose  most  precious  time. 

Greene,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  broken  up  his  camp  at 
Ramsay's  Mill  on  Deep  River  in  North  Carolina,  and 
advanced  on  Camden,  and  on  the  19th  of  April  had  taken 
post  at  Hobkirk's  Hill,  about  a  mile  and  a  half  in  advance 
of  the  British  redoubts.  Marion,  fearing  that  he  would 
not  be  able  to  carry  the  fort  without  artillery,  and  learning 
of  Greene's  arrival,  sent  an  urgent  request  that  a  piece 
should  be  forwarded  to  him.  Greene,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, had  lost  all  of  his  artillery  at  Guilford,  but  he  had 
since  received  two  pieces,  and  one  of  them  he  resolved  to 
forward  to  Marion,  but  the  fort  had  been  reduced  before 
the  piece  was  on  the  road. 

While  Marion  and  Lee  were  impatiently  waiting  for  the 
field-piece  Colonel  Maham,  one  of  Marion's  officers,^  sug- 
gested a  plan  which  led  to  the  immediate  reduction  of  the 
place.  At  King's  Mountain  the  underbrush  at  the  foot  of 
the  mountain  concealed  the  Americans,  while  the  bare  rock 
on  the  top  exposed  the  enemy  to  the  unerring  aim  of 
the  mountaineer's  rifle.  But  here  the  case  was  reversed. 
The  open  plain  afforded  no  shelter  for  Marion's  marksmen, 
while  the  stockade  and  abatis  protected  the  British  upon 
the  mound,  and  enabled  them  to  fire  upon  the  Americans 

1  See  this  ofiBcer  mentioned,  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  devolution,  1775- 
80  (McCrady),  144,  208. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  175 

with  security.  To  counteract  this  advantage  Colonel  Ma- 
ham  proposed  to  build  up  a  tower  of  logs  which  would 
overtop  the  mound,  and  from  this  to  fire  into  the  stockade 
on  the  mound.  This  suggestion  was  at  once  adopted. 
There  was  an  abundance  of  timber  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  fort,  and  axes  were  obtained  from  the  neighboring 
farms.  During  the  night  trees  were  felled  and  were  borne 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  men,  and  piled  crosswise  until  a 
tower  higher  than  the  mound  was  raised.  To  the  aston- 
ishment of  the  besieged,  as  soon  as  light  permitted  the 
discrimination  of  an  object,  the  fatal  effect  of  a  shower  of 
bullets  announced  to  them  that  their  stronghold  was  com- 
manded by  a  superior  work.  A  detachment  of  Marion's 
men  under  Ensign  Baker  Johnson  and  of  the  Continentals 
under  Mr.  Lee,  a  volunteer  in  the  Legion,  then  made  a 
lodgement  near  the  stockade,  and  began  to  pull  down  the 
abatis  and  to  dig  away  at  the  mound  itself.  Such  was  the 
effect  of  the  fire  of  the  riflemen  upon  the  tower,  having 
complete  command  of  every  part  of  the  fort,  that  the 
besieged  found  it  impossible  to  resist  the  lodgement  effected 
by  the  attacking  party.  Lieutenant  McKay,  who  had  so 
gallantly  held  out  for  eight  days,  then  hoisted  a  white  flag, 
and  the  garrison  capitulated.  The  American  loss  was  two 
of  Marion's  men  killed  and  three  wounded,  and  three 
Continentals  wounded.^  Far  beyond  the  prisoners  taken 
was  the  value  of  the  arms,  and  especially  ammunition, 
secured  in  the  fall  of  the  post,  which  included  the  arms  and 
ammunition  Sumter  had  taken,  but  had  lost  by  the  treach- 
ery of  his  guide. 

From  Georgetown,  to  which  place  Watson  had  retreated 
upon  the  junction  of  Marion  and  Lee,  the  most  practicable 
route  to  Camden,  where  he  should  now  proceed  to  reen- 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  331-332  :  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol.  II,  70  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion,  109-110. 


176  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

force  Lord  Rawdon,  was  by  crossing  the  north  and  south 
branches  of  the  San  tee  River  and  advancing  up  the  south- 
west bank  of  that  river  to  Nelson's  Ferry,  and  thence  by 
the  ordinary  route  up  the  east  bank  of  the  Congaree  and 
Wateree  to  Camden.  But  Marion  and  Lee  now  stood  at 
Fort  Watson  to  dispute  the  passage  of  Nelson's  Ferry. 
By  coming  to  the  assistance  of  McKay,  Watson  might  have 
compelled  the  raising  of  the  siege  of  Fort  Watson,  and 
have  forced  his  way  on  this  the  direct  road  to  Camden. 
But  this  he  did  not  think  the  state  of  the  force  with  him 
sufficient  to  justify,  and  rather  determined  to  sacrifice  the 
post  and  to  evade  Marion  in  his  attempt  to  reach  Camden. 
After  crossing  the  Santee  on  the  route  from  Georgetown, 
therefore,  he  moved  down  by  Monck's  Corner  and  cau- 
tiously advanced.  Relieved  of  the  siege  of  the  fort  and 
supplied  with  ammunition,  Marion  moved,  on  the  23d,  to 
the  High  Hills  of  Santee,  and  occupied  a  position  from 
which  all  the  roads  that  led  to  Camden  could  be  securely 
watched.  From  this  place  he  pushed  forward  his  pris- 
oners by  the  Black  River  road  to  the  depot  in  rear  of 
Greene's  army.  This  movement  of  Marion  towards  Cam- 
den brought  on  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill. 

Johnson  asserts  that  from  the  time  of  this  junction  until 
the  siege  of  Fort  Motte,  Colonel  Lee  acted  under  the  com- 
mand of  General  Marion. ^  This  Mr.  Henry  Lee,  in  his 
work  in  answer  to  the  judge,  denies,  and  ridicules  the 
idea  that  the  commander  of  the  Legion  —  a  Continental 
lieutenant  colonel  should  be  outranked  by  a  militia  gen- 
eral, especially  by  one  holding  his  commission  from  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  during  the  interregnum  of  Carolina.^    The 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  69. 

'^  Campaigns  of  1781  in  the  Carolinas  (H.  Lee),  Review  of  Johnson's 
Life  of  Greene,  249,  250.  In  point  of  fact  Marion,  though  now  acting 
under  his  commission  of  brigadier  general  of  State  militia,  was  actually 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  177 

fact,  nevertheless,  appeai-s  to  be  as  stated  by  Johnson.  In 
a  letter  of  the  28th  of  April  General  Greene  writes  to 
Marion,  informing  him  of  the  result  of  the  action  of  Ilob- 
kirk's  Hill,  making  light  of  his  repulse  and  saying,  "  You 
ivill  cross  the  river  Santee,  or  detach  Lieutenant-  Colonel  Lee^ 
and  direct  your  force  as  information  and  circumstances  may 
direct."  ^  And  in  a  letter  of  the  next  day  to  Lee  himself, 
appended  by  Mr.  Lee  to  his  reply  to  Judge  Johnson,  he 
repeats,  "In  my  lett.er  to  General  Marion  last  evening  I 
desired  him  either  to  detach  you^  or  cross  the  Santee  with 
you  as  he  might  think  advisable,''^  ^  It  may  have  been,  as 
Lee  asserts,  that  he  was  by  his  own  request  under  Marion. 
But  under  him  he  undoubtedly  was.  Marion,  as  com- 
pared with  Sumter,  was  Greene's  favorite,  though  in  his 
private  correspondence  Greene  was  accustomed  to  sneer  at 
both.  While  constantly  criticising  Sumter,  for  Marion  he 
had,  to  him,  only  words  of  praise. 

"  When  I  consider,"  he  writes  to  Marion  on  the  24th  of  April,  "  how 
much  you  have  done  and  suffered,  and  under  what  disadvantages  you 
have  maintained  your  ground,  I  am  at  a  loss  which  to  admire,  most, 
your  courage  and  fortitude,  or  your  address  and  management.  Certain 
it  is  no  man  has  a  better  claim  to  the  public  thanks  or  is  more  gen- 
erally admii-ed  than  you  are.  History  affords  no  instance  wherein  an 
officer  has  kept  possession  of  a  country  under  so  many  disadvantages 
as  you  have ;  surrounded  on  every  side  with  a  superior  force,  hunted 
from  every  quarter  with  veteran  troops,  you  have  found  means  to  elude 

still  a  lieutenant  colonel  in  the  Continental  line,  and  as  such  two  years 
the  senior  of  Lee,  and  thus  ranked  him  in  that  line. 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  61. 

2  Campaigns  of  1781,  Appendix  C.  In  a  letter  of  General  Greene  of 
the  16th  of  January,  1782,  written  to  General  Marion  upon  the  subject  of  a 
legionary  corps  then  raised  by  Maham,  he  says,  "Lee's  Legion  is  fre- 
quently under  particular  officer's  command  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
service."  This  must  refer  to  the  command  of  Sumter,  Marion,  or  Pick- 
ens, for  under  no  other  officer,  except  Laurens,  was  it  ever  so  put ;  but 
it  was  put  at  different  times  under  each  of  these  officers. 

VOL.  IV.  —  N 


178  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

all  their  attempts,  and  to  keep  alive  the  expiring  hopes  of  an  op- 
pressed militia  when  all  succor  seemed  to  be  cut  off.  To  fight  the 
enemy  bravely  with  a  prospect  of  victory  is  nothing,  but  to  fight  with 
intrepidity  under  the  constant  impression  of  defeat,  and  to  inspire 
irregular  troops  to  do  so,  is  a  talent  peculiar  to  yourself.  Nothing  will 
give  me  greater  pleasure  than  to  do  justice  to  your  merit,  and  I  shall 
miss  no  opportunity  of  declaringto  Congress,  the  Commander-in-chief 
of  the  American  army,  and  to  the  world  in  general,  the  great  sense  1 
have  of  your  merit  and  services."  ^ 

He  writes  on  the  24th,  to  Marion,  that  history  affords  no 
instance  wherein  an  officer  had  kept  possession  of  a  coun- 
try under  so  many  disadvantages  as  he  had  —  hunted  from 
every  quarter  with  veteran  troops,  he  had  found  the  means  to 
elude  all  their  attempts,  and  to  keep  alive  the  expiring  hopes 
of  an  oppressed  militia  when  all  succor  seemed  to  be  cut  off. 
He  assures  Marion  that  he  will  miss  no  opportunity  of  de- 
claring to  Congress,  the  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Ameri- 
can army,  and  to  the  world  in  general,  the  great  sense  he 
had  of  Marion's  merits  and  services.  General  Greene  had 
just  had  an  opportunity  of  informing  the  Commander-in- 
chief,  General  Washington,  of  what  Marion  had  dared  and 
accomplished,  and  of  declaring  to  Congress  through  his 
Excellency  his  great  sense  of  Marion's  merit  and  services, 
and  this  is  the  way  in  which  he  had  done  so.  Two  days 
before  he  wrote  to  Marion,  i.e.  on  the  22d,  he  had  written 
to  Washington  :  ^  — 

"  The  conflict  may  continue  for  some  time  longer ;  and  Generals 
Sumter  and  Marion,  and  many  others,  deserve  great  credit  for  their 
exertions  and  perseverance,  but  their  endeavors  rather  seem  to  keep 
the  contest  alive,  than  lay  any  foundation  for  the  recovery  of  these 
States." 

Would  Marion  have  considered  this  lukewarm  and  in- 
different report  to  Washington  what  he  had  a  right  to  sup- 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  59. 
'^  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  92. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  179 

pose  from  Greene's  letter  to  him  that  Greene  would  have 
made  ?  To  Marion  he  recognizes  that  that  partisan  officer 
had  kept  possession  of  the  country  under  circumstances  of 
which  he  extravagantly  says  history  affords  no  parallel. 
To  Washington  he  reports  with  faint  praise  that  Sumter 
and  Marion  were  good  and  brave  men,  but  that  their  efforts 
accomplished  nothing  but  to  keep  the  contest  alive ! 

The  letter  to  Washington  was  written  on  the  22d,  two 
days  before  the  letter  to  Marion.  The  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill  was  fought  and  lost  on  the  25th.  A  few  days  after,  i.e. 
on  May  4th,  in  one  of  his  voluminous  communications  to 
his  friend.  Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania,  he  is  more  un- 
guarded in  his  language,  and  instead  of  taking  this  oppor- 
tunity— so  favorable  a  one  of  reaching  the  ears  of  Congress 
—  of  extolling  Marion,  his  faint  praise  to  Washington  degen- 
erates into  little  less  than  complaint  and  disparagement.^ 

"  You  frequently  hear,"  he  writes,  "  of  great  things  from  Generals 
Marion  and  Sumter.  These  are  brave  and  good  officers ;  but  the  people 
with  them  just  come  and  go  as  they  please.  These  parties  rather 
seem  to  keep  the  dispute  alive  than  lay  any  foundation  for  the  recov- 
ery of  the  country.  Don't  be  deceived  in  your  expectations  from  this 
quarter ;  if  greater  support  cannot  be  given  for  the  recovery  of  these 
States,  they  must  and  will  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy." 

This  is  the  version  of  the  letter  of  the  4th  of  May  given 
by  Johnson,  in  the  text  of  his  life  and  correspondence  of 
Greene ;  but  there  is  another  letter  of  the  same  date  to  the 
same  person,  given  by  Gordon  in  his  work  on  the  American 
war,2  or  another  version  of  the  same  letter,  in  which  Greene 
is  still  more  disparaging.     He  writes :  — 

"  Generals  Marion  and  Sumpter  have  a  few  people  who  adhere  to 
them,  perhaps  more  from  a  desire  and  the  opportunity  of  plundering 
than  from  any  inclination  to  promote  the  independence  of  the  United 

States.'' 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  88. 

2  Gordon's  Am.  Bevolution,  vol.  IV,  88. 


180  IIISTOKY    OF    SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Judge  Johnson,  in  a  subsequent  part  of  his  work  in  which 
he  is  engaged  in  defending  Greene's  character  from  the 
imputation  of  a  connection  with  Mr.  Banks's  fraudulent 
speculations,  in  a  note  is  compelled  to  admit  the  genuine- 
ness of  this  latter  version;  but  does  not  account  for  the 
version  which  he  had  previously  given  in  the  body  of  his 
work.  He  says  that  he  has  looked  into  the  original  corre- 
spondence, and  found  that  there  was  actually  such  a  passage 
as  that  quoted  by  Gordon. ^  A  possible  solution  of  the 
matter  is  that  the  passage  given  by  Johnson  in  the  body  of 
his  work  was  from  the  first  draft  retained  by  Greene,  and 
that  found  among  Governor  Reed's  papers  and  quoted 
by  Gordon,  the  letter  as  actually  written  out  and  sent 
by  Greene.  Certain  it  is  that  the  letter  in  its  most  objec- 
tionable form  was  that  actually  sent  to  Governor  Reed,  for 
it  was  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death.  Judge 
Johnson  endeavors  to  defend  Greene  from  the  apparent  in- 
sincerity of  his  correspondence  in  this  matter  by  observing 
that  this  was  a  private  letter  to  Governor  Reed,  not  intended 
for  publication,  and  only  published  by  the  indiscretion  of 
Gordon. 2  That  may  be  so,  but  Governor  Reed  was  a  per- 
son of  large  influence  near  Congress,  whose  personal  views 
would  have  great  weight,  and,  indeed,  it  was  because  of 
this  fact  that  Greene  was  so  assiduous  in  his  voluminous 
correspondence  with  him.     He  was  Greene's  mouthpiece  at 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  436. 

2  This  may  be  true,  but  was  Judge  Johnson  aware  that  Gordon  was 
assisted  in  the  commencement  of  the  preparation  of  his  work  by  General 
Greene  himself?  Prof.  Edward  Channing,  in  Winsor's  Narrative  and 
Critical  History,  vol.  VI,  518,  says:  "The  most  valuable  history  of  the 
Kevolution  from  a  British  pen  is  Gordon's  well-known  work.  This  author 
was  assisted  by  Gates  and  Greene  so  far  as  the  Southern  campaigns  was 
concerned."  See  this  quoted  by  Grin  Grant  Libby,  Ph.D.,  in  Ann.  Be- 
port  Am.  Hist.  Ass.,  1899,  vol.  I,  368.  General  Greene  died,  however,  it 
should  be  remembered,  June  19,  1786,  two  years  before  Gordon's  work 
was  published. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  181 

the  seat  of  government.  Was  this  letter  consistent  with 
Greene's  voluntary  promise  to  testify  to  Washington  and 
to  Congress  of  the  great  work  Marion  had  accomplished? 

Gordon's  work  on  the  Revolution,  as  it  happened, 
appeared  in  1788,  and  Sumter,  who  had  just  then  been 
elected  a  member  of  the  first  Congress  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, in  a  circular  to  his  constituents  on  the  24th  of  August, 
1789,  concludes  with  this  paragraph :  ^  — 

"  The  following  is  an  abstract  of  a  letter  from  General  Greene  to 
Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania  dated  May,  1781,  taken  from  Gordon's 
history  of  America  just  published,  '  Generals  Marion  and  Sumpter 
have  a  few  people  who  adhere  to  them,  perhaps  more  from  a  desire 
and  opportunity  of  plunder  than  from  any  inclination  to  promote  the 
independence  of  the  United  States.'  View  this  and  suppress  your 
indignation  if  you  can !  " 

Sumter  was  also  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  the  Second  Congress,  in  1792,  when  upon  the 
petition  of  General  Greene's  widow  for  indemnity  of  his 
estate  on  matters  growing  out  of  the  Banks  affair,  he  was 
present  to  pronounce  these  letters  of  Greene  to  Washing- 
ton and  Governor  Reed  as  "gross  calumnies  on  and  mis- 
representations of  the  character  of  the  people."^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  (xreene^  vol.  II,  437. 

2  Abridgment  of  the  Debates  of  Congress^  vol.  I,  341.  It  cannot  be 
understood  that  in  this  charge  against  the  followers  of  Sumter  and  Marion, 
General  Greene  was  alluding  to  the  system  of  pay  in  spoil  upon  which 
Sumter  was  attempting  to  organize  regiments  of  State  troops  upon  the 
basis  of  regulars,  (1)  because  that  scheme  was  inaugurated  with  Greene's 
own  concurrence  and  approval  (See  his  instructions  to  Sumter  of  17th  of 
May,  1781,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  101-102),  (2) 
because  at  the  date  of  the  letter  it  had  not  yet  gone  into  actual  operation 
at  all,  (3)  because  it  never  v/as  adopted  by  Marion  in  his  brigade,  and 
(4)  because  Greene's  own  immediate  army  was  practically  living  upon  the 
same  means,  i.e.  spoils  taken  from  the  Tories  and  impressments  from  the 
Whigs.  Indeed,  we  shall  see  him  refusing  to  return  horses  belonging  to 
Whigs  recaptured  by  his  men,  under  the  specious  plea  of  the  doctrine  of 
postliminium^  ^.liA  appropriating  them  to  the  use  of  his  officers. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

1781 

Breaking  up  his  camp  at  Ramsay's  Mill  on  the  7th  of 
April,  the  day  after  he  had  despatched  Lee  to  Marion, 
Greene  sent  off  all  the  stores  that  could  be  spared  from 
present  demands  on  the  route  by  Salisbury  to  the  head  of 
the  Catawba ;  and,  crossing  the  Deep  River,  he  made  a  day's 
march,  as  if  following  Cornwallis,  then,  taking  the  first 
convenient  road  to  the  right,  he  advanced  directly  upon 
Camden.  The  route  which  he  pursued  crosses  the  Pee 
Dee  River  below  the  mouth  of  Rocky  River,  and  passing 
through  Anson  County  in  North  Carolina  and  the  eastern 
part  of  Lancaster  in  South  Carolina,  crosses  the  branches 
of  Lynch's  Creek  some  miles  above  their  confluence.  The 
distance  to  Camden  was  about  130  miles,  the  country  poor 
and  exhausted,  yet  such  was  the  perseverance  with  which 
his  march  was  urged  that,  although  delayed  at  the  Pee  Dee 
for  want  of  boats  full  four  days,  on  the  19th  the  American 
general  made  his  appearance  before  Camden.^ 

On  the  road  General  Greene  received  a  communication 
from  Sumter  by  Captain  McBee,  telling  him  that  a  party 
of  the  enemy,  numbering  about  150  horse  and  foot,  from 
Camden,  had  made  a  raid  into  the  Waxhaws,  burnt  the 
meeting-house  and  several  other  houses,  barns,  etc.,  killed, 
wounded,  and  taken  several  persons,  and  plundered  the  set- 
tlement, carrying  off  horses;  that  he  had  at  once  detached 
Colonels  Hampton  and  Taylor  after  them,  but  did  not  ex- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  44. 
182 


on  the  25tK^ril  1781. 

Drawn,  by  C  VaUoJUxy,  Capt.  oftJi£.  Vblfof  IreUuicb. 
i^   Wfixre.  th^  Enrols  Piquet*  ■»•«/«.  tdtacAeet. 


'P  Co  T^o/^  Bony-ZSc 


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vaucutr 
■  |T*sued-  ci-oo,-jv.3  v.. ,:.  r 
l^y  River,  and  passi 
orth  cirolina  and  the  easte 


.  V' 


Americ 


Au/bermg  about    ^o  3D..a..t,io  ^         ,^ 


l-iV 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  183 

pect  that  they  would  be  able  to  overtake  them.  He  also 
reported  that  he  had  just  received  accounts  from  General 
Pickens  that  he  had  collected  a  few  men  of  his  brigade,  and 
also  a  few  Georgians,  but  was  unable  to  attempt  anything 
against  the  enemy ;  that  he  had  ordered  four  of  his  regi- 
ments to  join  Pickens,  and  had  requested  him  to  move 
down  and  take  position  upon  Tyger  River  near  Fishdam 
ford,  to  cover  the  country  and  collect  provisions ;  that  he 
had  just  learned  from  Captain  McBee,  the  bearer  of  the 
letter  he  was  writing,  that,  with  the  men  of  the  four  regi- 
ments he  had  detached  and  sent  to  him,  Pickens  was  mov- 
ing upwards,  which,  if  with  the  design  to  take  them  to  the 
Savannah,  would  weaken  him  considerably,  but  that  he 
had  written  to  General  Pickens,  telling  him  of  the  measures 
necessary  in  consequence  of  his  (Greene's)  movements 
towards  Camden,  and  that  he  did  not  think  Pickens  would 
go  far  —  however,  he  expected  to  have  near  the  number  in 
the  field  he  had  mentioned  to  Major  Hyrne;  he  missed 
his  four  regiments  he  had  sent  to  Pickens,  but  intended  to 
form  a  junction  of  all  that  were  embodied  on  Tuesday  next 
(which  would  be  the  17th  of  April). ^  This  letter  was 
handed  by  Captain  McBee  to  General  Greene  on  the  15th, 
who  at  once  replied  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Camden, 
where  he  expected  to  arrive  in  four  or  five  days;  that 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Lee  was  on  his  march  from  the  Pee  Dee 
to  the  Santee,  and  would  cross  that  river  somewhere  near 
Nelson's  Ferry  and  come  up  on  the  other  side ;  and  sug- 
gested that  perhaps  Sumter  might  make  his  movements 
cooperate  with  Lee's,  and  also  with  Pickens's.  He  charged 
him,  however,  to  bear  in  mind  that  their  whole  force  when 
collected  was  very  small,  and  that  he  should  not  lose  sight 
of  a  junction  should  Lord  Cornwallis  move  that  way;  if 

1  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appen- 
dix, 8-9. 


184  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAKOLINA 

Lord  Cornwallis  did  not,  and  if  the  garrison  at  Camden 
was  not  well  supplied  with  provisions,  it  must  fall  in  a  few 
days;  that  was  his  hope,  for  he  had  no  battery  cannon  and 
too  few  troops  to  warrant  a  storm  of  the  post.  He  charged 
Sumter  to  give  him  constant  intelligence  of  his  force  and 
situation,  as  matters  might  grow  very  critical  by  and  by.^ 

Upon  his  arrival  before  Camden,  General  Greene  at  once 
wrote  to  Sumter  that  he  had  taken  a  position  three  miles 
from  the  town,  that  the  country  was  barren  and  promised  no 
hope  of  support :  he  depended  entirely  on  him  for  supplies, 
corn  and  meal ;  both  these  articles  were  immediately  wanted, 
and  unless  Sumter  could  furnish  them  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  him  to  keep  his  position  ;  he  wished  very  much  to 
know  Sumter's  situation,  and  how  he  had  disposed  of  him- 
self to  cooperate  with  his  army  in  any  particular  emer- 
gency .^  Four  days  after,  that  is,  on  the  23d,  he  wrote 
again,  mentioning  his  former  letter,  to  which  he  had  received 
no  answer,  and  expressing  the  fear  that  it  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  the  Tories.  He  had  since,  he  went  on  to  say, 
carefully  examined  the  fortifications  of  the  place,  and  found 
them  much  superior  to  what  he  had  expected;  that  the 
garrison  was  likewise  stronger,  and  that  he  had  the  morti- 
fication yesterday  to  learn  that  the  South  Carolina  Royalists 
had  the  day  before  thrown  themselves  into  the  place,  com- 
ing from  Ninety  Six ;  that  he  was  too  weak  in  numbers  to 
invest  the  place,  and  must  depend  upon  him  to  secure  him 
on  the  quarter  from  Ninety  Six  and  Charlestown  on  the 
west  side  of  the  Wateree,  while  Marion  did  so  on  the  east 
side  from  Georgetown  and  Charlestown.  He  mentioned 
that  Marion  and  Lee  were  at  Nelson's  Ferry,  and  had 
closely  invested  the  fort  at  that  place,  but  for  want  of 
cannon  he  was  afraid  they  would  fail  of  taking  it.^ 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  88-90. 
2  Ibid.  8  Ibid.,  90-91. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  185 

By  Greene's  letter  of  instructions  to  Sumter  of  the  15th, 
the  latter  was  to  cooperate  with  Marion  and  Lee  at  Nel- 
son's Ferry,  as  well  as  with  Pickens  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Ninety  Six.  On  the  25th,  the  day  the  battle  of  Hob- 
kirk's  Hill  was  fought,  but  of  which  Sumter  knew  nothing, 
he  writes  to  Greene  reporting  his  operations  under  his 
instructions.  His  movements,  he  wrote,  had  been  very 
slow,  and  he  feared  attended  with  many  disadvantages ; 
the  militia  were  coming  in  tolerably  well ;  he  had  a  num- 
ber of  wagons  coming  down,  and  he  expected  to  be  joined 
by  three  more  well-appointed  troops  from  North  Carolina. 
As  he  found  delay  unavoidable,  he  had  marched  into  the 
Mobley  and  Sandy  Run  (Tory)  settlements  with  a  view  of 
harassing  the  enemy,  which  had  effectually  been  done,  and 
he  hoped  would  give  relief  to  their  friends  in  that  neigh- 
borhood. Some  small  skirmishes  had  taken  place ;  he  had 
lost  no  men;  several  of  the  enemy  had  fallen  and  many 
others  had  been  taken  prisoners ;  upon  the  whole  they  had 
been  pretty  well  scourged.  He  would  send  some  large 
parties  into  the  Dutch  Fork  to  clear  that  place,  and  call  out 
the  well-disposed  inhabitants,  and  then  march  with  all  speed 
for  the  Congaree.  He  had  detached  Colonel  Hampton  to 
the  Wateree  with  a  few  wagons  for  provisions,  if  any  could 
be  found,  to  be  sent  to  Greene.  Hampton  would  also  keep 
small  parties  of  the  enemy  from  going  into  and  coming 
out  of  Camden.  Pickens  had  joined  him,  but  had  none 
of  his  men  with  him.  Pickens  would  set  off  the  next 
day  with  a  regiment  of  Sumter's  brigade  to  take  command 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Ninety  Six.  The  Georgians  had 
gone  back  into  their  own  State  and  had  been  joined  by 
almost  every  man  in  the  Up-Country.^  In  those  move- 
ments Sumter  had  been  strictly  carrying  out  Greene's  in- 

1  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1890,  Appen- 
dix, 10-11. 


186  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

structions.  But  on  the  day  on  which  Sumter  wrote  the 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  had  been  fought,  and  Greene  had 
been  defeated. 

As  has  already  appeared,  Lord  Rawdon  had  received  in- 
formation of  Greene's  approach  and  received  the  reenforce- 
ment  of  a  considerable  body  of  Loyalists  and  recruits  from 
the  Saluda  and  the  Broad  rivers,  under  Major  Frazier ; 
and,  to  his  great  mortification,  Greene  found  that  the  garri- 
son of  Camden  was  fully  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  the  force 
he  had  brought  against  it.  There  is  a  great  discrepancy 
among  the  authorities  in  regard  to  the  numbers  of  Greene's 
army.  Ramsay,  on  the  one  hand,  states  that  the  American 
army  consisted  of  about  seven  hundred  Continentals,  and 
makes  no  mention  of  any  militia  or  other  body,^  while 
Colonel  Lee,  on  the  other,  estimates  its  numbers  at  fifteen 
hundred. 2  But  as  Lee  himself  states  that  the  force  was 
inadequate  to  the  investment  of  Camden,  it  is  preferred 
to  adopt  Johnson's  careful  estimate  in  detail,  which  is  as 
follows :  — 

The  whole  regular  infantry  of  the  American  army  at  the 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  was  843  present  fit  for  duty.  The 
approach  to  an  enemy's  garrison  had,  as  usual,  increased 
desertions ;  the  Virginia  line  was  continually  fluctuating 
in  numbers  from  the  daily  discharge  of  those  whose  time 
of  service  had  expired,  and  this  was  partially  the  case  at 
this  time  with  the  Maryland  troops;  and  long  marches,  hard 
service,  and  great  exposure  had  sent  many  men  to  the  hos- 
pital, most  of  whom  had  necessarily  been  left  in  the  rear 
when  they  crossed  from  the  Cape  Fear  to  Camden.  The 
cavalry  nominally  consisted  of  two  regiments.  White's 
and  Washington's,  but  actually  in  number  only  87,  and 
only    56    of    these    were    mounted.     The    artillery   also 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  230. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  333. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  187 

nominally  constituted  a  regiment  and  was  commanded 
by  Colonel  Harrison  in  person,  but  actually  there  were  not 
men  enough  to  fight  three  pieces,  and  after  sending  off  the 
piece  to  Marion  not  above  40  artillerists  remained.  The 
only  militia  force  then  with  the  army  consisted  of  254 
North  Carolinians.  Of  these  150  under  Colonel  Read  had 
joined  Greene  soon  after  he  crossed  the  Dan,  and  had  faith- 
fully adhered  to  him  from  that  time.  They  were,  like 
Sumter's  and  Marion's  men,  volunteers  —  men  of  the  first 
respectability,  from  whom  much  might  have  been  expected 
in  action.  The  rest  had  escorted  the  supplies  sent  to  the 
army  by  Colonel  Davie.  Those  authors  who  extend  the 
American  force  beyond  this  estimate,  says  Johnson,  must 
be  led  into  some  error,  since  General  Greene  repeatedly 
asserts  that  the  forces  of  the  combatants  were  nearly  equal.^ 
The  Americans  thus  numbered  939.  The  British  accounts 
assert  that  Lord  Rawdon,  by  arming  every  person  in  the 
garrison  capable  of  bearing  arms,  musicians  and  drummers, 
mustered  an  effective  force  of  about  900.2  The  two  armies, 
thus  nearly  equal  in  numbers,  were  as  well  matched  in  the 
quality  of  the  troops.  Greene's  army  consisted  of  650  Con- 
tinentals, or  regulars,  including  the  First  Maryland  Regi- 
ment, which  had  distinguished  itself  alike  at  Cowpens  and 
Guilford  Court-house,  so  that  it  was  spoken  of  as  the  Tenth 
Legion.  And  of  the  250  militia  150  at  least  were  volun- 
teers of  the  first  respectability.  Lord  Rawdon's  force  was 
made  up  of  the  Sixty-third  Regiment  of  the  British  line,  his 
own  regiment,  the  Volunteers  of  Ireland,  organized  in  Phila- 
delphia, the  King's  American  Regiment,  raised  in  and 
around  New  York,  Colonel  Turnbull's  New  York  Volun- 
teers, the  South  Carolina  Provincial  Regiment,  and  a  small 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  77. 

a  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  356 ;  Annual  Register,  vol.  XXIV,  81  ; 
see  also  Gordon's  Aju.  Bevolution,  vol.  IV,  81. 


188  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

body  of  New  York  Dragoons  under  Captain  Coffin.  These 
provincial  regiments  were  of  the  same  character  as  the 
Continental  regiments  of  the  American  service.  They 
were  regular  troops  enlisted  in  America.  Besides  these 
regulars,  Lord  Rawdon  had  a  body  of  Loyalists  who  corre- 
sponded to  the  militia  under  Greene. 

On  the  20th  of  April  General  Greene,  advancing  a  little 
from  the  position  he  had  taken  the  day  before,  took  post 
at  Hobkirk's  Hill,  to  the  north  of  Camden,  about  a  mile 
and  a  half  in  advance  of  the  British  redoubts.  Here  he 
lay  on  his  arms  that  day  and  the  next,  reconnoitring  the 
enemy's  position,  getting  intelligence  of  his  strength,  and 
hoping  to  tempt  him  into  the  field.  He  had  received  two 
pieces  of  artillery,  as  has  been  seen,  to  replace  those  lost  at 
Guilford,  one  of  which  he  proposed  to  send  to  Marion  upon 
his  urgent  request,  the  more  readily  as  he  knew  that 
Colonel  Harrison  was  at  the  time  on  his  march  from  Vir- 
ginia with  two  pieces  more.  To  mask  the  departure  of 
this  gun,  Greene  moved  his  army  down  to  the  southeast  of 
Camden,  having,  before  he  did  so,  sent  back  the  artillery, 
his  baggage,  and  everything  that  could  impede  his  move- 
ments, with  an  escort  of  North  Carolina  militia  under 
Colonel  Carrington.  This  officer  was  directed  to  proceed 
no  farther  than  Rugeley's  Mill,  from  which  the  piece  des- 
tined to  Marion  was  to  be  sent  under  Captain  Finley  by 
the  Black  River  road.  Major  Eaton,  with  220  North  Caro- 
lina levies  just  arrived,  was  to  march  with  the  piece  for  its 
protection.  The  meanwhile  Greene  lay  beyond  Pine  Tree 
Creek,  southeast  of  Camden,  at  a  place  called  the  South 
Quarter,  until  the  24th,  when,  learning  of  the  approach  of 
the  body  of  North  Carolina  levies  under  Major  Eaton,  and 
despairing  of  tempting  Lord  Rawdon  from  his  stronghold, 
he  sent  orders  to  Marion  to  march  up  as  soon  as  he  should 
have  gained  the  fort  and  to  assist  him  to  invest  Camden. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  189 

To  Carrington  he  sent  orders  to  move  down  and  rejoin 
him  at  Hobkirk's  Hill.  But  this  officer,  instead  of  halting 
at  Rugeley's  Mill,  ten  miles  distant,  had  conceived  that  it 
would  be  safer  to  move  farther  on,  and  had  gone  eight 
miles  farther  to  a  place  called  Upton's  Mills.  This  un- 
fortunate disobedience  of  orders  of  which  the  general  was 
unapprised,  nearly  doubled  both  the  time  it  took  the  cou- 
riers to  reach  Carrington  and  the  time  necessary  to  comply 
with  the  orders  to  rejoin  him.  The  consequences  of  this 
derangement,  says  Johnson,  exhibited  themselves  in  that 
hurry  in  camp  on  the  morning  of  the  25th,  which  gave  rise 
to  the  charge  that  Greene  had  suffered  a  surprise. ^ 

Lord  Rawdon,  following  the  example  of  the  Earl  Corn- 
wallis  the  year  before  at  the  same  place,  assumed  the  of- 
fensive, as  Greene  had  at  first  hoped  that  he  would  do. 
He  had  been  informed  by  a  deserter  of  Colonel  Carrington's 
march  to  Rugeley's  Mill,  and  deemed  it  an  opportune  mo- 
ment to  attack  Greene  before  Carrington  or  Marion  should 
join  him,  or  his  artillery  should  come  up.  Accordingly,  at 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  25th  of  April,  he  marched 
out  from  Camden  with  all  the  force  he  could  muster. 
Turning  aside  from  the  direct  road  to  Rugeley's  Mill  and 
keeping  close  to  the  edge  of  the  swamp  of  Pine  Tree 
Creek,  under  cover  of  the  woods,  he  formed  his  army  for 
attack  upon  the  left  of  the  American  line.  His  order  of 
battle  was  the  same  also  as  that  of  Cornwallis  in  the  previ- 
ous engagement.  His  first  line  was  composed  of  the  Vol- 
unteers of  Ireland  on  the  right,  the  New  York  Volunteers 
in  the  centre,  and  the  King's  American  Regiment  on  the 
left.  The  Sixty-third  Regiment  supported  the  volunteers 
of  Ireland  on  the  right,  a  detachment  under  a  Captain 
Robertson  supported  the  King's  American  Regiment  on  the 
left.  The  South  Carolina  Provincial  Regiment  and  the  New 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  75. 


190  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

York  Dragoons  were  held  in  reserve.  The  accounts  of  this 
battle,  English  and  American,  generally  agree  that  Greene 
was  surprised  by  the  advance  of  Rawdon  and  taken  at 
a  disadvantage.  General  Huger,  the  second  in  command, 
told  General  Moultrie  that  they  had  just  come  on  the 
ground,  and  that  so  little  did  they  expect  the  British  out 
of  their  line  that  a  number  of  officers,  with  himself,  were 
washing  their  feet,  and  a  number  of  soldiers  were  washing 
their  kettles,  in  a  small  rivulet  that  ran  by  their  camp, 
when  their  pickets  were  driven  in.^  Colonel  Lee  states 
that  the  men  were  engaged  in  distributing  provisions  and 
washing  their  clothes  ;2  Stedman,  that  the  Americans  were 
resting  in  a  fancied  state  of  security  when  the  pickets  were 
driven  in.^  The  Annual  Register  goes  farther,  and  accuses 
the  Americans  of  being  shamefully  remiss  and  inattentive  ;* 
but  Johnson  fully  exonerates  the  American  commander 
from  this  aspersion.  He  shows,  we  think  satisfactorily, 
that  though  the  attack  was  commenced  while  Greene  him- 
self was  at  breakfast  and  his  men  were  cooking  theirs,  his 
line  was  formed  and  every  battalion  was  in  its  place,  the 
artillery  in  battery,  and  all  the  baggage  moved  off,  before 
the  enemy  presented  themselves.  As  observed  by  Colonel 
Davie,  who  was  present,  "  Men  must  cook  and  eat,  and, 
when  they  can,  will  be  washing  and  mending  their 
clothes."^  This  is  unavoidable.  Blame  only  is  deserved 
when,  in  the  performance  of  these  duties,  proper  precau- 
tions are  neglected.  The  American  line  of  battle  which 
Rawdon  found  posted  was  as  follows:  The  two  Virginia 
regiments,  forming  a  brigade  under  General  Isaac  Huger, 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  276. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  336. 
8  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  356. 

*  Annual  Register,  1781,  vol.  XXIV,  82. 
^  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  94-95. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  191 

were  on  the  right  of  the  road,  the  Fourth  under  Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Campbell,  and  the  Fifth  under  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Hawes.  The  two  Maryland  regiments,  under 
Colonel  Otho  H.  Williams,  were  on  the  left,  the  First 
Maryland  under  Colonel  Gunby,  and  the  Fifth  under 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Ford.  The  reserve  consisted  of  the 
cavalry  under  Lieutenant-Colonel  Washington,  and  the 
North  Carolina  militia  under  Colonel  Read.  Conjecturing 
that  the  enemy  were  still  unapprised  of  the  arrival  of  his 
artillery,  the  two  centre  regiments  —  the  Fifth  Virginia 
and  the  First  Maryland  —  were  closed  across  the  road,  and 
masked  the  pieces  which  were  placed  there.  Patrols  were 
out  to  scour  the  country  upon  Greene's  right,  and  two 
strong  pickets,  commanded  by  Captains  Morgan  and  Ben- 
son, were  a  mile  in  advance  on  his  left,  and  in  support  of 
them  was  posted  Captain  Kirkwood  of  Delaware,  with  the 
remains  of  his  gallant  command. 

The  enemy's  advance  was  announced  by  the  firing 
of  these  pickets,  who  advanced  with  the  utmost  coolness, 
gathering  in  their  videttes,  retiring  in  good  order,  and 
forming  under  Kirkwood.  As  the  British  approached, 
the  American  infantry  unmasked  the  artillery,  and  re- 
ceived the  assailants  with  showers  of  grape.  Availing 
himself  of  the  effect  of  this  fire  of  his  artillery,  Greene 
assumed  the  offensive,  assured  of  an  easy  victory.  Nothing 
more  appeared  to  be  necessary  but  to  close  upon  the 
flanks  of  the  enemy,  and  cut  off  the  flying  troops  from 
regaining  the  redoubt  of  Camden. ^  As  the  British  front 
occupied  a  smaller  space  than  the  American,  it  was  re- 
ceived by  Colonel  Hawes's  Virginians  and  Colonel 
Gunby's  Marylanders,  Colonel  Campbell's  Virginians  on 
the  extreme  right,  and  Colonel  Ford's  Marylanders  on  the 
left  overlapping  the  attacking  column.  Confident  of  suc- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  77-80. 


192  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

cess,  Greene  hurriedly  ordered  Washington  to  make  for 
the  enemy's  rear,  Colonel  Campbell  to  wheel  upon  their  left 
and  Colonel  Ford  upon  their  right,  and  the  centre  regiments, 
Hawes's  and  Gunby's,  to  charge.  But  Greene  had  no  ordi- 
nary adversary  to  deal  with  in  Lord  Rawdon,  nor  had  his 
troops  inferior  men  to  oppose.  Lord  Rawdon  at  once  ad- 
vanced his  support,  and  extended  his  line  in  such  a  manner 
as  not  only  to  counteract  this  movement  of  the  Americans, 
but  to  expose  their  wings  to  the  very  disadvantage  to  which 
Greene  had  proposed  to  subject  his.  As  Campbell  and 
Ford  executed  Greene's  order,  and  wheeled  their  regiments 
to  attack  the  flank  of  the  advancing  column  of  the  British, 
they  themselves  were  outflanked  by  Lord  Rawdon's  sup- 
port, now  extended  on  the  right  and  left.  Disorder  fol- 
lowed, and  Greene's  flanking  wings  were  driven  back. 
Nor  did  the  centre  regiment  respond  to  his  wishes. 

The  deflection  to  the  right  pursued  by  Rawdon  had 
brought  the  brunt  of  the  attack  upon  Greene's  left  centre. 
But  nowhere  else  could  he  have  wished  it  to  have  fallen, 
as  that  was  the  position  of  the  famous  First  Maryland. 
Against  this  excellent  regiment,  the  movements  on  the 
field  had  thrown  the  best  troops  on  the  British  side  —  the 
Sixty-third  Regiment  of  the  line,  and  the  King's  American 
Regiment.!  Here,  then,  might  well  have  been  expected 
a  terrific  struggle  for  the  mastery.  But,  strange  to  say, 
the  Marylanders,  who  had  fought  so  gloriously  against  the 
Seventy-first  at  Cowpens,  and  fought  half  the  battle  at 
Guilford  now  quailed  before  the  Sixty-third,  and  shrank 
away  in  a  panic.  The  first  symptom  of  confusion  was 
shown  by  the  fire  contrary  to  orders.  This  was  scarcely  sup- 
pressed when  Captain  Beatty,  who  led  the  right  company 
of  the  First  Marylands,  who  was  the  pride  and  stay  of 
his  command,  fell  pierced  to  the  heart.  His  fall  caused 
1  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  463 


IN   THE  KEVOLUTION  193 

those  nearest  to  him  to  check  their  progress,  and  the  halt 
was  rapidly  communicated,  from  right  to  left,  through  two 
companies  before  the  cause  was  understood.  Some  hesita- 
tion ensued  when  the  men  were  urged  to  regain  the  line. 
Then  occurred  the  event  upon  which  Greene  asserts  that 
the  fate  of  the  battle  turned.  Colonel  Gunby  despatched 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Howard  with  orders  to  his  remaining 
companies  of  the  regiment,  then  advancing  with  confi- 
dence, to  halt  and  fall  back  in  order  that  he  might  reform 
their  faltering  comrades  upon  them.  But,  instead  of  this, 
the  retrograde  movement  only  extended  the  panic  to  those 
who  had  been  before  without  fear.  Nor  did  the  evil 
end  here.  While  Williams,  Gunby,  and  Howard  were 
actively  and  earnestly  engaged  in  a  combined  effort  to 
rally  their  regiment,  Colonel  Ford,  whilst  gallantly  execut- 
ing his  orders  on  the  American  left,  fell  from  his  horse 
with  a  mortal  wound.  His  regiment,  dispirited  by  the 
fall  of  its  leader,  and  severed  from  the  line  by  the  retire- 
ment of  the  First  Maryland,  soon  faltered  and  retired. 

Nothing,  says  Johnson,  could  exceed  the  surprise  and 
disappointment  of  the  commander  at  this  instant.  His 
favorite  regiment,  in  whose  courage  and  conduct  he  re- 
posed with  such  confidence,  now  blasting  all  his  fair  hopes 
by  a  retreat  without  making  the  smallest  trial  for  victory ! 
Conscious  of  the  vital  importance  of  rapidity  in  the 
movement  of  the  wings,  he  had  spurred  his  horse  up  to 
the  extreme  right,  and  was  leading  on  Campbell's  right 
in  person  when  he  was  called  away  by  the  hesitation  and 
confusion  manifested  in  his  centre.  He  vainly  tried  the 
influence  of  his  voice  and  presence  to  bring  his  panic- 
stricken  soldiers  once  more  into  action.  They  heard  him 
and  they  halted,  but  by  this  time  they  had  reached  the 
bottom  of  the  hill,  and  his  attention  was  now  drawn 
away  by  the  loud  shouts  of  the    enemy.     Again   urging 

VOL.  IV.  O 


194  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

his  horse  to  the  summit  of  the  hill,  the  whole  extent  of 
his  misfortune  opened  upon  his  view. 

Hawes's  regiment  was  now  the  only  one  remaining  intact. 
The  artillery  was  left  open  and  exposed  on  the  summit  of 
the  hill.  Its  loss,  besides  the  certain  evidence  of  defeat, 
could  not  have  been  repaired.  In  the  midst  of  the  flying 
bullets  which  were  showered  about  him,  for  he  was  then 
almost  alone  upon  the  most  exposed  part  of  the  hill,  his 
historian  asserts,  his  orders  were  issued  in  a  tone  of  perfect 
composure,  to  draw  off  the  right  and  left  regiments  and  form 
them  on  Gunby's  regiment  which  was  now  rallied;  while 
Hawes  with  the  Second  Virginia  should  cover  their  retreat. 
This  order  was  well  executed,  and  in  the  issue  left  the 
American  commander  the  election  of  a  renewal  of  the  battle 
or  a  composed  retreat.  But  during  its  execution  the  artil- 
lery was  exposed  to  imminent  danger.  To  save  this  Greene 
ordered  up  Captain  Smith,  who  commanded  a  light  in- 
fantry company  detailed  from  the  Maryland  line.  The 
enemy,  with  loud  shouts,  ascended  the  hill,  and  the  British 
horse,  commanded  by  Captain  Coffin,  now  appeared  to  join 
in  the  pursuit.  The  matrosses  were  quitting  the  drag-ropes 
when  Greene  galloped  up  alone, —  for  his  aides  were  engaged 
elsewhere  carrying  his  orders,  —  and,  dismounting,  himself 
seized  the  ropes,  thus  inspiring  his  men  with  a  zeal  which 
could  not  be  resisted.  Smith  now  arrived  and  assisted  in 
drawing  off  the  guns,  until  Coffin's  cavalry  approached  the 
hill,  when,  forming  in  the  rear  of  the  artillery,  he  poured  into 
Coffin's  ranks  a  volley  from  which  they  recoiled  and  re- 
treated. Again  and  again  did  Coffin  return  to  the  charge, 
while  Smith's  men  in  the  intervals  assisted  at  the  drag- 
ropes  ;  and  as  often  as  Coffin  repeated  his  attempts  was  he 
foiled  and  driven  back  with  loss.  But  the  enemy's  infantry 
now  coming  up.  Smith's  men  began  fast  to  fall.  He  him- 
self was  badly  wounded,  but   neither  his  resolution   nor 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  195 

even  his  cheerfulness  flagged.  His  little  party  of  forty-five 
men  was  now  reduced  to  but  fourteen,  and  some  accident 
having  caused  them  to  deliver  an  irregular  fire,  Coffin  suc- 
ceeded in  forcing  them,  and  every  man  was  killed  or  taken. 
The  artillery  would  now  have  been  lost  had  not  Colonel 
Washington  appeared  on  the  field,  and,  charging  in,  put 
an  end  to  the  contest. 

Colonel  Washington's  appearance  at  this  critical  moment 
undoubtedly  saved  Greene  the  loss  of  his  artillery ;  and 
Greene,  in  his  official  report,  gives  him  great  credit,  assert- 
ing that  he  had  penetrated  into  the  enemy's  rear,  found  them 
flying,  and  made  two  hundred  prisoners.  But,  strange  to  say, 
it  appears  that  these  prisoners  were  all  non-combatants,  to 
secure  or  parole  whom  Washington  not  only  lost  the  most 
precious  time,  but  actually  encumbered  his  own  force. 
General  Davie,  who  was  with  Greene  at  this  time,  thus 
describes  his  action:  — 

In  turning  the  enemy's  left  Washington  made  a  circuit  so  larg© 
as  to  bring  him  into  the  open  commons  between  Log  Town  and  Camden ; 
this  space  was  filled  with  doctors,  surgeons,  qaartermasters,  commis- 
saries, wagon  masters,  waiters,  and  all  the  loose  trumpery  of  an  army 
who  had  pushed  out  to  see  the  battle.  The  cavalry  immediately 
charged  this  mixed  multitude,  and  employed  in  taking,  securing,  and 
paroUing  a  great  number  of  these  people  those  precious  moments 
which  would  have  brought  them  in  actual  contact  with  the  second 
line  of  the  enemy,  either  before  it  moved  up  to  extend  the  front,  or 
while  this  manoeuvre  was  performing,  and  in  either  case  the  charge 
would  have  been  decisive,  and  the  battle  would  not  have  lasted  fifteen 
minutes.  But  the  charge  was  never  made  on  the  line  of  the  enemy, 
the  critical  m.oment  was  lost,  and  in  battles  minutes  are  hours.  The 
British  officers  acknowledged  the  unfortunate  effect  of  the  clemency 
of  our  cavalry  in  waiting  to  capture  and  parole  prisoners  when  they 
should  have  cut  them  out  of  their  way  without  stopping,  and  charged 
the  rear  of  the  British  line.  They  were,  in  fact,  so  encumbered  with 
prisoners  they  could  do  nothing."  ^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  83. 


196  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

The  British  accounts  make  still  less  of  Colonel  Wash- 
ington's movement  in  their  rear.  They  restrict  its  results 
to  the  capture  of  a  few  stragglers  and  the  paroUing  of  some 
British  officers  who  lay  on  the  ground. ^  Not  only  did 
Washington  waste  his  time  in  parolling  wounded  officers 
and  non-combatants,  but  he  encumbered  his  cavalry  by 
mounting  these  useless  prisoners  behind  his  troopers,  thus 
exhausting  his  horses  and  rendering  them,  while  thus 
doubly  burdened,  useless  for  further  action.  It  was  in 
this  condition  that  he  approached  his  own  army  upon  his 
return,  and  had,  of  course,  to  lose  further  time  while  throw- 
ing off  his  prisoners  before  he  could  make  the  charge. 

When  Greene  found  his  artillery,  ammunition  wagons, 
and  other  material  safe  from  the  enemy,  he  remained  only 
long  enough  to  collect  his  wounded  as  far  as  circumstances 
would  permit,  and  ordered  a  retreat ;  upon  which  Lord 
Rawdon  occupied  the  ground  whereon  the  American  army 
had  been  drawn  up.  He  did  not  pursue  far,  and  Greene, 
after  retiring  two  or  three  miles,  halted  to  recover  his 
stragglers.  Here  he  remained  until  afternoon,  and,  hav- 
ing refreshed  his  men,  continued  the  retreat  with  his 
infantry  and  artillery  as  far  as  Sanders's  Creek,  about  four 
miles  from  the  field  of  battle  and  near  the  place  of  Gates's 
defeat  in  August  before,  and  there  he  encamped. 

Lord  Rawdon  did  not  pursue  farther,  but  as  Greene 
retired  he  also  withdrew  towards  Camden,  leaving  Captain 
Coffin  and  some  mounted  men  on  the  field  of  battle.  This 
party  Washington  succeeded  in  drawing  into  an  ambush, 
and  cut  to  pieces  or  dispersed,  and  thereupon  occupied  the 
position  where  Greene  had  drawn  up  his  army  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  thus,  in  a  manner,  the  Americans  remained  in 
possession  of  the  field. 

1  Stednian's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  358  ;  Annual  Register,  vol.  XXIV,  82  ; 
Tarleton's  Campaigns,  464. 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  197 

The  Americans  lost  in  this  action  19  killed,  113  wounded, 
and  136  missing,  in  all  268.1  The  British  lost  258,  of 
which  about  38  were  killed.^  The  loss  to  the  Americans 
in  officers  was  severe.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Ford's  wound 
proved  mortal,  and,  as  has  been  seen.  Captain  Beatty  was 
killed.  The  British  lost  no  officers  of  prominence.  One 
only  was  slain  and  11  wounded.  The  respective  losses 
on  the  two  sides  were  thus  as  nearly  equal  as  was  the 
strength  of  the  contending  armies. 

Great  was  Greene's  disappointment  at  the  result  of  this 
battle.  He  had  confidently  anticipated  victory,  and  in  this 
his  officers  appear  to  have  joined,  but  upon  what  ground 
it  is  difficult  to  perceive.  The  opposing  armies,  as  it  has 
appeared,  were  almost  of  exact  equality  in  numbers,  and 
in  material  the  British  were  in  no  wise  inferior.  The  only 
advantage  which  Greene  possessed  was  in  his  three  pieces 
of  artillery.  In  any  event  the  issue  of  a  struggle  with  so 
good  a  soldier  as  Lord  Rawdon  upon  such  equal  terms 
must  have  been  in  doubt  to  the  last.  But  Greene's  con- 
fidence, and  his  singular  want  of  respect  for  his  adversary, 
led  him  to  commit  the  great  error  of  attempting  to  attack 
on  all  sides  an  enemy  whose  force  was  equal  to  his  own. 
Thus  it  was  that,  in  attempting  to  strike  his  opponent  upon 
both  flanks,  he  exposed  his  own  wings  to  the  very  danger 
he  designed  for  his  opponent.  As  the  wings  under  Camp- 
bell and  Ford,  on  the  right  and  left,  in  obedience  to  his 
order,  wheeled  towards  the  advancing  British  column,  they 
themselves  exposed  their  flanks  to  the  prolongation  of  the 
British  line  made  to  meet  them.  So,  too,  Washington,  in 
carrying  out  his  order  to  make  for  the  enemy's  rear,  was 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  85 ;  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776, 339 ; 
Return  of  Col.  Williams,  Adjutant  General ;  Tarleton's  Campaigns^  470. 

2  Stedman's  Am.  War,  358  ;  Annual  Begister,  vol.  XXIV,  83;  Tarle- 
ton's Campaigns,  461. 


198  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

practically  withdrawn  from  the  battle,  and  his  strength 
and  energy  wasted  in  a  raid  which  had  no  eifect  upon  its 
result. 

But  Greene  was  not  convinced  of  his  error  by  the  prac- 
tical working  out  of  his  plan  of  battle  in  defeat.  The  loss 
of  victory  was  due  to  some  one  else.  There  must  be  found 
a  victim,  and  so  Colonel  Gunby  was  settled  upon  as  the 
responsible  author  of  the  defeat.  He  was  immediately 
called  before  a  court  of  inquiry  consisting  of  General 
Huger,  Colonel  Harrison,  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Wash- 
ington. The  court  found  that  Colonel  Gunby's  spirit  and 
activity  were  unexceptionable,  but  that  his  order  for  the 
regiment  to  retire  was  extremely  improper  and  unmilitary, 
and  in  all  probability  the  only  cause  why  they  did  not 
obtain  a  complete  victory.  Gunby,  though  thus  personally 
exculpated  from  all  but  an  error  of  judgment,  was  de- 
tached upon  some  employment  in  the  rear  of  the  army,  and 
did  not  rejoin  it. 

Greene  was  greatly  chagrined  at  the  result  of  the  battle. 
He  was  one  of  those  commanders  who  can  always  persuade 
themselves  that  but  for  the  untoward  conduct  of  others, 
great  victories  would  undoubtedly  have  been  achieved. 
Of  the  battle  of  Guilford  Court-house,  he  had  written 
with  the  same  confidence,  "  Had  the  North  Carolina  militia 
done  their  duty,  the  victory  would  have  been  certain  and 
easy."^  So  now  he  writes:  "Gunby  was  the  sole  cause 
of  the  defeat.  .  .  .  We  should  have  had  Lord  Rawdon 
and  his  whole  command  prisoners  in  three  minutes  if 
Colonel  Gunby  had  not  ordered  his  regiment  to  retire."  ^ 
And  again :  *'  We  have  been  twice  beaten,  the  last  time  by 
the  unfortunate  order  of  Colonel  Gunby,  who  ordered 
the  First  Maryland  Regiment  to  retire  when  the  enemy 
were  fleeing  before  them  and  in  confusion  in  all  quarters. 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  24.  ^  j^^i^^^  86-87. 


IN   THE   EEVOLUTION  199 

Victory  was  certain,  and  the  fall  of  Camden  as  certain,  as 
I  had  taken  measures  to  cut  off  their  retreat."  ^ 

The  result  of  the  battle  might  have  been  much  longer  in 
doubt,  and  might  have  been  decided  very  differently,  had 
not  the  Marylanders  failed  at  this  critical  moment.  But 
it  will  be  observed  that  Gunby's  order  was  not  the  begin- 
ning of  the  difficulty.  The  trouble  arose  from  one  of  those 
unaccountable  panics  which  occasionally  take  possession  of 
the  best  troops,  and  against  which  no  precaution  can  be  main- 
tained, and  over  which  no  leadership  can  prevail.  Greene's 
line  had  been  broken,  not  by  Gunby,  but  by  Captain  Beatty's 
men  upon  his  fall.  Had  Gunby  taken  a  different  course, 
the  Marylanders  might  have  been  rallied  and  brought  back 
to  action.  But  they  might  not.  And  to  assert  that  but 
for  his  mistake  victory  was  certain  was  mere  assumption. 
With  quite  as  much  reason  may  the  defeat  have  been  at- 
tributed to  the  course  pursued  by  Washington  on  his  raid 
into  a  deserted  camp,  instead  of  a  charge  upon  the  flanks 
of  the  fighting  enemy ;  or,  indeed,  to  Greene's  own  mis- 
management, by  which  in  advancing  his  centre  he  covered 
his  artillery  so  completely  as  to  silence  it,  while,  attempting 
to  assail  both  flanks  of  the  enemy,  he  exposed  his  own 
wings  to  a  like  danger. 

It  does  not  appear  that  there  was  any  such  break  or 
confusion  in  the  British  ranks  as  Green  supposed.  The 
grape-shot  from  his  field-pieces  was  very  destructive  to 
the  enemy,  but,  so  far  from  fleeing  before  it,  it  was  their 
steady  advance  which  so  disconcerted  the  Marylanders. 

Greene's  chagrin  was  not  confined  to  the  loss  of  the 
battle  by  Gunby.  He  was  disheartened  and  dissatisfied. 
To  his  friend.  Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania,  he  pours 
out  his  complaints.  The  nature  of  the  war  and  the  re- 
sources of  the  country  appear,  he  writes,  to  be  little  known 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  87-89. 


200  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

to  the  northward.  The  strength  and  resources  of  these 
States  to  support  the  war  had  been  greatly  magnified  and 
overrated,  and  those  whose  business  and  true  interest  it 
was  to  give  a  just  statement  of  the  situation  had  joined  in 
the  deception,  and  from  a  false  principle  of  pride  in  having 
the  country  thought  powerful  had  led  peojjle  to  believe  it 
was  so.  It  was  true  there  were  many  inhabitants,  but 
they  were  over  a  great  extent  of  country  and  nearly  equally 
divided  between  the  king's  interest  and  ours.  The  produce 
raised  in  it  was  difficult  to  collect  from  the  extent  of  the 
country  in  the  best  of  times,  and  it  was  utterly  impossible  to 
do  so  then,  as  all  the  horses  and  means  of  transportation  were 
destroyed.  The  love  of  ease  and  want  of  zeal  among  the 
friends  of  the  cause  rendered  their  exertions  very  languid, 
and  unless  the  Northern  States  could  give  more  efficient 
support  these  States  must  fall ;  and  what  was  worse,  their 
fall  would  sap  the  foundations  of  the  liberties  of  all  the 
rest.  The  service  in  their  quarter  was  so  disagreeable  to 
the  Continental  soldiers  that  many  of  them  deserted  and 
entered  the  British  service.  Camden,  Ninety  Six,  and 
Augusta  covered  all  the  fertile  parts  of  the  States,  and  the 
enemy  had  laid  waste  the  upper  country  in  such  a  manner 
that  an  army  could  not  subsist  in  the  neighborhood  of 
their  posts ;  and  this  must  secure  them.  Nothing  but  a 
superior  army  to  the  enemy's  collective  force  could  give 
relief  to  this  distressed  country,  the  miseries  of  which  ex- 
ceeded all  belief.  He  did  not  believe  any  people  suffered 
greater  calamities.  The  Whigs  and  Tories  were  butcher- 
ing each  other  hourly.  The  war  here  was  on  a  very  dif- 
ferent scale  from  what  it  was  at  the  North.  It  was  a  plain 
business  there.  The  geography  of  the  country  reduced  its 
operations  to  two  or  three  points.  But  here  it  was  every- 
where. The  country  was  so  full  of  deep  rivers  and  im- 
passable creeks  and  swamps  that  one  was  always  liable  to 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  201 

misfortunes  of  a  capital  nature.  In  collecting  provisions 
and  forage  he  was  obliged  to  send  the  same  guards  and 
escorts  as  if  the  country  was  avowedly  the  enemy's. 

He  complained  that  Virginia,  which  had  exerted  herself 
the  winter  before  when  the  enemy  approached,  had  done 
nothing  since.  That  North  Carolina  had  done  nothing 
at  all  until  she  saw  that  the  enemy  would  not  be  allowed 
to  possess  the  State  quietly.  Maryland  had  given  no  assist- 
ance to  his  army.  Not  a  recruit  had  joined  him  from  that 
State,  and  he  was  discharging  his  men  daily  upon  the 
expiration  of  their  terms  of  service.  "  You  hear  great 
things,"  he  continues,  "  from  Generals  Marion  and  Sumpter. 
These  are  brave,  good  officers;  but  the  people  who  are 
with  them  just  come  and  go  as  they  please.  These  par- 
ties rather  seem  to  keep  the  dispute  alive  than  lay  a 
foundation  for  the  recovery  of  the  country.  Don't  be 
deceived  in  your  expectations  from  this  quarter ;  if  greater 
support  cannot  be  given  for  the  recovery  of  these  States, 
they  must  and  will  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy." 

"  The  prospects  here,"  he  declared,  "  are  so  unpromising, 
and  the  difficulties  so  great,  that  I  am  almost  sick  of  the 
service  and  wish  myself  out  of  the  department.  When  I 
made  this  last  movement  I  expected  two  thousand  Virginia 
militia  to  operate  with  us  and  one  thousand  men  with 
Sumpter ;  ^  but  both  have  failed  and  I  am  in  the  greatest 
distress.  The  tardiness  of  the  people  put  it  out  of  my 
power  to  attempt  anything  great.  If  our  good  ally  the 
French  cannot  afford  assistance  to  these  Southern  States, 
in  my  opinion  there  will  be  no  opposition  on  this  side  of 
Virginia  before  the  fall,  and  I  expect  the  enemy  will  possess 
all  the  lower  country  of  that  State.  The  want  of  subsist- 
ence will  prevent  further  operations  in  this  country  unless 

1  In  this,  as  it  has  appeared,  he  was  mistaken.  Sumter's  estimate  in- 
cluded Marion's  men  as  well  as  his  own. 


202  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

we  can  take  post  on  the  Congaree  where  provisions  are  to 
be  had  in  great  plenty."  ^ 

Such  was  Greene'  s  despondency  and  discontent.  ^  Yet 
Sumter  and  Marion,  whose  achievements  he  so  belittled  as 
to  declare  that  they  rather  served  to  keep  alive  the  dispute 
than  lay  a  foundation  for  the  recovery  of  the  country,  had 
already  in  the  judgment  of  Lord  Cornwallis  and  Lord  Raw- 
don  rendered  necessary  the  abandonment  of  Camden,  and  it 
was  Greene's  coming  only  which  had  postponed  its  evacua- 
tion. Lord  Rawdon  had  the  earl's  instructions  to  retire 
within  the  cover  of  the  Santee,  which  had  only  been  delayed 
by  Greene's  approach.^  If  the  French  could  not  afford 
assistance,  it  was  Greene's  opinion  that  before  the  fall  there 
would  be  no  opposition  this  side  of  Virginia.  The  French 
did  come  to  the  assistance  of  Virginia ;  but  before  their 
arrival  there  South  Carolina  had  been  recovered,  and  the 
British  confined  to  the  neighborhood  of  Charlestown. 
What  part  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Pickens  had  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  great  result  has  already  appeared,  and  will 
still  further  appear  in  the  sequel.  It  is  sufficient  now  to 
observe  that  Greene  failed  to  appreciate  that  the  geography 
and  topography  of  the  country^  of  which  he  complained 
was  much  more  disadvantageous  to  the  enemy  than  to  the 
Americans.  Its  deep  rivers  and  impassable  swamps  were 
so  many  natural  defences  against  the  invaders.  Marion 
understood  this,  and,  availing  himself  of  these  fastnesses, 
became  a  terror  to  the  enemy.  Greene  had  no  taste  nor 
talent  for  this  kind  of  warfare.  He  was  for  a  grand  army 
and  open  country,  in  which  he  might  apply  the  stock  of 
military  knowledge  which  he  had  acquired,  as  his  biographer 
tells,  at  Boston  in  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution. 

Lord  Rawdon  had  achieved  a  decisive  victory  over  Greene 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  87-89. 

2  Taiie ton's  Campaigns^  461,  462. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  203 

and  his  Continental  troops,  but  the  work  of  the  Carolina 
partisan  bands,  while  Greene  was  in  North  Carolina,  was 
not  undone.  The  spirit  of  the  whole  people  was  aroused, 
especially  in  the  Low-Country,  which  had  been  stunned 
by  the  blow  of  the  fall  of  Charlestown  and  the  following 
disasters ;  armed  parties  of  patriots  were  everywhere  scour- 
ing the  country.  The  British  were  not  deceived  by  Lord 
Rawdon's  victory ;  they  yet  fully  recognized  the  gravity 
of  their  situation.  Colonel  Balfour,  writing  to  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  giving  him  an  account  of  that  success,  thus  closes 
his  letter :  ^  — 

"But  notwithstanding  this  brilliant  success,  I  must  inform  your 
Excellency  that  the  general  state  of  the  country  is  most  distressing, 
that  the  enemy's  parties  are  everywhere,  the  communication  by  land 
with  Savannah  no  longer  exists.  Colonel  Brown  is  invested  at  Augusta, 
and  Colonel  Cruger  in  the  most  critical  situation  at  Ninety  Six,  nearly 
confined  to  his  works  and  without  any  present  command  over  that 
country.  Indeed,  I  should  betray  the  duty  I  owe  your  Excellency,  did 
I  not  represent  the  defection  of  this  province  so  universal,  that  I  know 
of  no  mode  short  of  depopulation  to  retain  it. 

"  This  spirit  of  revolt  is  in  some  measure  kept  up  by  the  many 
officers  prisoners  of  war  here,  and  I  should  therefore  think  it  advisable 
to  remove  them,  as  well  as  to  make  the  most  striking  examples  of  such 
as,  having  taken  protection,  snatch  every  occasion  to  rise  in  arms 
against  us." 

This  was  the  work  of  Sumter  and  Marion,  as  the  Brit- 
ish recognized  it ;  but  which,  in  Greene's  opinion,  served 
only  to  keep  alive  the  dispute,  rather  than  lay  any  foun- 
dation for  the  recovery  of  the  country. 

^  Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy,  vol.  I,  472. 


CHAPTER  IX 

1781 

Greene,  who  on  the  morning  of  the  25th  of  April  had 
been  so  confident  of  victory  and  the  capture  of  Rawdon's 
army,  that  evening  despatched  to  Sumter  an  order  to  col- 
lect all  his  force  and  join  him  immediately.  His  army,  he 
wrote,  was  too  small  to  maintain  his  ground  before  Cam- 
den, and  therefore  it  had  become  necessary  that  they 
should  form  a  junction  of  their  forces.  The  enemy  had 
advanced  that  morning  and  given  battle.  They  had  driven 
him  some  little  distance  from  the  field,  but  he  had  saved 
his  stores  and  taken  some  prisoners.^ 

The  next  morning  he  received  letters  from  Marion,  in- 
forming him  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Watson,  and  wrote  at 
once,  congratulating  that  officer  upon  his  success  and  ap- 
proving the  articles  of  capitulation.  The  enemy,  he  wrote, 
had  advanced  upon  him  yesterday  and  given  him  battle. 
The  conflict  had  been  short  and  seemed  once  to  promise 
him  advantage,  but  he  had  been  obliged  to  retire  and  give 
up  the  field,  though  with  no  material  loss.  He  was  now 
within  five  miles  of  Camden  and  should  closely  invest  it  in 
a  day  or  two  again.  That  he  might  be  enabled  to  cooper- 
ate with  more  certainty  against  the  post,  he  requested 
Marion  to  move  up  immediately  to  their  assistance  and 
take  post  on  the  north  side  of  the  town.^  Orders  were 
also  sent  to  Colonel  Lee,  requiring  him  to  join  the  army 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  92. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  60. 

204 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  205 

forthwith.^  The  fact  is  that  Greene,  mortified  at  the  result 
of  the  battle,  was  now  contemplating  the  abandonment  of 
the  State,  and  the  withdrawal  of  his  army  to  Virginia.^ 
This,  it  is  true,  Johnson,  his  biographer,  will  not  allow, 
but  the  evidence  is  conclusive  that  it  was  so ;  and  the  re- 
sult of  the  movement  which  he  now  ordered  opened  the 
way  for  Watson  to  rejoin  Rawdon. 

As  soon  as  the  capitulation  of  Fort  Watson  had  been 
signed,  Lee,  followed  by  his  infantry,  hastened  to  the 
cavalry  of  his  Legion,  who  were  still  in  front  of  Watson, 
and,  on  the  next  morning,  was  joined  by  Marion,  who  had 
been  delayed,  disposing  of  the  prisoners  and  stores.  Watson, 
it  will  be  remembered,  after  crossing  the  Santee  in  his 
movement  from  Georgetown,  had  cautiously  advanced  to 
Monck's  Corner.  As  Marion  and  Lee  were  directly  in  his 
way  by  the  Nelson's  Ferry  road,  he  turned  to  his  left,  and, 
moving  up  the  southwest  bank  of  the  Santee,  through 
what  is  now  Orangeburg  County,  beyond  where  the  Con- 
garee  and  Wateree  uniting  form  the  Santee,  taking  the 
route  by  Fort  Motte,  crossed  the  Congaree  at  McCord's 
Ferry,  then  proceeding  up  the  west  bank  of  the  Wateree, 
through  what  is  now  Richland  County,  he  finally  joined 
the  army  by  crossing  the  Wateree  near  Camden.  Watson 
had  placed  himself  at  a  considerable  distance  before  his 
enemy  discovered  his  course.  Lee  was,  nevertheless,  about 
to  attempt  to  intercept  him,  when  he  received  Greene's 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  341. 

2  Lee  writes  :  "  General  Greene,  heretofore  soured  by  the  failure  of  his 
expected  succor  from  Sumter,  now  deeply  chagrined  by  the  inglorious 
behavior  of  a  favorite  regiment,  converting  his  splendid  prospects  into 
the  renewal  of  toil  and  difficulty,  of  doubt  and  disgrace,  became  for  a 
while  discontented  with  his  advance  to  the  south.  He  sent  orders  to 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Lee  requiring  him  to  join  the  army  forthwith,  and 
iutlicated  by  other  measures  a  disposition  to  depart  from  his  adopted 
systcmy  —  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  341. 


206  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

order  to  rejoin  the  army.  This  he  at  once  obeyed,  and, 
moving  with  all  possible  despatch,  he  had  marched  thirty- 
two  miles  during  the  course  of  the  day  and  a  part  of  the 
night,  when  he  was  met  with  an  order  countermanding  his 
junction  with  the  army.  In  the  meanwhile  the  possibility 
of  stopping  Watson  had  been  lost.  Captain  Finley,  with 
the  piece  of  artillery  which  Greene  had  despatched  upon 
Marion's  application,  joined  Lee,  and  they  at  once  returned 
to  that  officer,  who  was  at  the  High  Hills  of  Santee,  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Congaree  and  Wateree,  waiting  for  Wat- 
son's advance.     But  Watson  had  eluded  them. 

The  day  after  the  battle  Greene  moved  his  army  to 
Rugeley's  Mill,  where  he  remained  for  several  days ;  then, 
breaking  up  his  camp  there,  he  crossed  the  Wateree  into 
what  is  now  Fairfield  County,  and  took  a  strong  position 
on  Twenty-five  Mile  Creek,  hoping  in  this  way  to  inter- 
cept Watson  upon  his  southern  route.^ 

Neither  Sumter,  Marion,  or  Lee  joined  Greene,  as  called 
upon  to  do,  after  the  battle  of  the  25th.  Lee,  as  it  has 
appeared,  moved  at  once  to  do  so,  but  was  met  by  counter- 
manding orders,  and  returned  to  Marion,  and  with  him 
proceeded  to  Black  River.  Sumter  has  been  much  criti- 
cised because  he  did  not  come  as  ordered.^  This  criticism, 
which  came  first  from  Greene  himself,  was  most  unjust,  as 
appears  from  their  correspondence  at  the  time.  On  the 
19th  of  April  Greene  writes  to  Sumter,  informing  him  of 
his  arrival  within  three  miles  of  Camden,  telling  him  that 
his  greatest  dependence  was  upon  him  for  supplies,  and 
inquiring  as  to  his  situation.  On  the  23d  he  writes  again 
—  fearing  that  his  letter  of  a  day  or  two  before  had  fallen 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  342  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol.  II,  105. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  341  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol.  II,  213  ;  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas,  290. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  207 

into  the  hands  of  the  Tories  —  that  he  had  the  mortifica- 
tion to  learn  that  the  South  Carolina  Royalists  had,  the 
day  before,  thrown  themselves  into  Camden ;  that  he  must 
depend  entirely  upon  him  for  security  against  parties  from 
Ninety  Six.  Neither  of  these  letters  appear  to  have 
reached  Sumter  for  some  days  —  that  of  the  23d  certainly 
did  not  until  the  27th.  But  on  the  25th,  the  day  of  the  date 
of  Greene's  order,  and  of  the  battle,  Sumter,  of  his  own 
motion,  had  written  a  long  letter  to  Greene,  giving  him  a 
full  account  of  his  movements,  telling  him  that  he  had 
gone  into  the  Mobley  settlement  to  relieve  their  friends 
in  that  section ;  that  he  would  march  to-morrow  with  all 
speed  for  the  Congaree  ;  that  he  had  detached  Colonel 
Hampton  to  the  Wateree  with  wagons  for  provisions  to 
be  sent  to  him ;  that  Hampton  would  also  keep  small 
parties  from  going  into  or  coming  out  of  Camden.  Sumter 
received  Greene's  letter  of  the  23d  on  the  27th,  and  again 
writes  fully .^  On  the  28th  Captain  Pierce,  aide-de-camp, 
writes  to  Sumter,  "  General  Greene  has  received  your 
letter  of  the  25th,  and  desires  me  to  return  his  thanks  for 
your  exertions."  ^  And  yet  in  a  letter,  which  from  its  con- 
text is  supposed  to  have  been  written  on  the  29th,  Greene 
complains  to  Lee:  "  General  Sumter  has  got  but  few  men ; 
he  has  taken  the  field  and  is  pushing  after  little  parties  of 
Tories  towards  Ninety  Six.  Mayor  Hyrne  is  gone  to  him, 
if  possible  to  get  him  to  join  us,  hut  this  I  know  he  will 
avoids  if  he  can  with  decency^  for  the  same  reason  that  you 
wish  to  act  separately  from  the  armyT  ^ 

This  correspondence  discovers,  to  say  the  least,  great 
want  of  candor  on  the  part  of  the  commanding  general. 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Nightingale  Collection,  Ymr  Book,  City  of  Charleston, 
1899,  Appendix,  10-12. 
3/6id,  92. 
«  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  64. 


208  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

In  pushing  towards  Ninety  Six  himself,  and  sending 
Hampton  with  wagons  for  supplies  for  Greene's  army, 
Sumter  had  but  obeyed  the  general's  own  orders  as  far  as 
received,  and  anticipated  those  not  received.  He  was  en- 
deavoring to  do  just  what  Greene's  letters  directed  him 
to  do,  to  secure  Greene  against  parties  from  Ninety  Six. 
Upon  his  report  of  what  he  had  done,  Greene  returns  bare 
thanks  for  his  exertions,  and  the  next  day  writes  to  Lee, 
implying  that  Sumter  was  contravening  his  wishes  in  going 
on  expeditions  for  his  own  personal  ends.  Lee  falls  at 
once  into  the  general's  humor,  and  replies : — 

"  You  do  me  great  honor  in  calling  the  adopted  plan  mine.  I  have  no 
pretence  to  such  distinction.  It  gave  me  pleasure  to  know  that  my 
sentiments  coincided  with  yours,  and  this  honor  I  claim.  I  am  so 
convinced  of  the  wisdom  of  the  operations  that  no  disaster  can  affect 
my  opinion.  Hitherto  all  is  well,  and  nobody  to  hlame  hut  General 
Sumter.  I  do  not  conceive  how  you  can  assimilate  any  part  of  my 
conduct  to  this  gentleman's,  especially  when  you  recollect  that  by  my 
own  request  1  am  under  General  Marion,"  etc.  ^ 

Thus  Greene,  desiring  to  get  out  of  the  business,  and 
Lee,  anxious  to  keep  him  to  it  by  flattery  or  other- 
wise, unite  in  putting  the  blame  of  failure  at  Hobkirk's 
Hill  upon  Sumter.  And  yet  the  facts  were  that  Sumter 
had  promptly  replied  to  Greene's  request  to  collect  a  force 
and  join  him,  writing  on  the  very  day  the  request  was 
received,  to  wit,  the  25th,  and  that  in  such  a  manner  that 
Greene  on  the  28th  —  only  the  day  before  he  complains  to 
Lee  —  returns  thanks  for  his  exertions,  telling  him  that 
Major  Hyrne  has  been  sent  to  acquaint  him  with  the  situa- 
tion.2  Major  Hyrne  returned  to  Greene  the  morning  of  the 
30th,  with  a  letter  from  Sumter  of  the  29th,  to  which 
Greene  writes  in  reply  on  the  30th :  ^  — 

1  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas,  290. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  92. 

3  Ibid.,  93. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  209 

"  Both  by  the  Major's  report  and  your  letter  I  find  you  think  it  will 
be  prejudicial  to  the  public  service  for  you  to  cross  the  Wateree  and 
join  me.  Our  situation  requires  it ;  but  you  press  so  many  objections, 
and  I  am  so  desirous  to  rouse  the  people  in  that  quarter,  I  have 
thought  it  most  advisable  to  revoke  the  order  and  leave  you  at  liberty 
to  prosecute  your  original  plan.  General  Marion  and  Col.  Lee  had 
orders  to  cross  the  Santee,  and  one  or  both  undoubtedly  will.  If  both 
cross,  I  am  afraid  Watson,  who  is  now  in  Georgetown,  will  throw 
himself  into  Camden.  If  they  separate,  I  fear  one  part  will  be  too 
weak  to  oppose  him.  You  will  keep  yourself  informed  of  both  his 
and  Major  McArthur's  movements,  the  latter  of  whom,  with  the 
Hessian  Horse,  I  fear  got  into  Camden  last  evening.  However,  this 
is  not  certain."  ^ 

On  the  2d  of  May  Sumter  acknowledged  the  receipt  of 
this  letter  of  Greene's  of  the  30th.  "  I  am  glad,"  he  writes, 
"you  are  so  circumstanced  as  to  permit  the  troops  with 
me  to  remain  in  this  quarter."  He  reports  that  Hampton 
had  returned  from  the  Wateree,  that  he  had  killed  thirteen 
of  the  enemy's  guard  at  Friday's  Ferry,  five  of  another 
party  going  to  the  fort  (Granby),  and  had  taken  a  number 
of  horses  and  several  negroes.  He  reports  also  that  Colonel 
Thomas  had  just  returned  from  Bush  River,  in  what  is 
now  Newberry  County,  where  he  fell  in  with  a  party  of 
Tories,  killed  three,  and  took  twelve  prisoners,  four  wag- 
ons, and  several  negroes;  that  while  he  was  not  well 
informed  as  to  McArthur's  movements,  he  had  no  appre- 
hensions that  he  could  get  into  Camden  without  his 
knowing  of  it;  that  he  had  ten  wagons  on  their  way  to 
Greene  with  meat,  and  that  he  could  furnish  more.  He 
thought  that  if  he  had  a  six-pounder  this  place  (Granby) 
might  be  taken. ^ 

1  Major  McArthur,  it  will  be  recollected,  was  at  Cowpens,  commanding 
the  Seventy-first  Regiment,  where  he  was  taken,  surrendering  his  sword 
to  General  Pickens.  He  now  appears  again  in  the  field,  but  we  have  no 
account  of  his  release  or  exchange. 

'^  Sumter's  Letters,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charles- 
ton, 1889,  Appendix,  13. 

VOL.  IV.  —  p 


210  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

From  these  letters  it  appears  that  Sumter  had  so  con- 
vinced Greene  that  his  withdrawal  from  the  Wateree  would 
be  prejudicial  to  the  service  as  to  induce  him  to  revoke 
the  order  requiring  him  to  do  so.  Sumter  was  reporting 
to  him  daily,  and  they  were  apparently  acting  in  the  fullest 
accord.  On  the  4th  of  May  Greene  writes  Sumter  of  in- 
telligence he  had  received  that  Lord  Cornwallis  had  moved 
up  towards  Cross  Creek,  and,  it  was  thought,  was  on  his 
way  to  Camden,  which,  however,  was  uncertain.  Corn- 
wallis's  movements  would  oblige  him  to  collect  all  his 
regular  forces,  for  which  purpose  he  sends  to  Sumter  letters 
to  be  forwarded  to  Marion  and  Lee.  He  was  glad  to  hear 
that  the  people  were  joining  him,  but  was  afraid  it  was 
little  to  be  depended  upon.  He  wished  to  know  what 
force  Sumter  had,  and  what  Marion  could  join  them  with. 
"  If  our  collective  strength  would  warrant  an  attack  upon 
Lord  Cornwallis,"  he  writes,  "  I  should  be  glad  to  make  it, 
for  defeating  him  will  be  next  to  an  entire  recovery  of  the 
country,  and  anything  else  a  partial  business."  So  far 
from  disapproving  Sumter's  course  at  this  time,  he  con- 
tinues: "If  you  can  possess  the  forts  upon  the  Congaree 
with  a  field-piece,  it  can  be  sent  you  immediately.  But 
then,  whatever  is  done  must  take  place  immediately,  or 
the  enemy  will  in  all  probability  be  soon  upon  our  tracks." 
Writing  to  Lee,  he  had  expressed  distrust  of  Sumter,  and 
now,  writing  to  Sumter,  he  complains  of  Marion  in  a 
matter  which  came  near  losing  that  officer's  indispensable 
services  to  the  country.  "  Don't  fail  to  get  us  all  the  good 
dragoon  horses  that  you  can,  for  we  are  in  the  utmost 
distress  for  want  of  them.  Genl.  Marion,  I  am  told,  has 
a  considerable  number  of  them,  on  which  he  has  mounted 
his  militia.  It  is  a  pity  that  good  horses  should  be  given 
into  the  hands  of  people  who  are  engaged  for  no  lim- 
ited  time."     Though  Sumter,  because  of  his  wound   in 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  211 

the  shoulder,  wrote  with  great  pain,  letters  were  passing 
between  these  two  officers  daily,  sometimes  twice  a  day. 
On  the  6th  of  May  Greene  acknowledges  the  receipt  of 
two  letters  of  the  4th,  and,  giving  Sumter  the  latest  in- 
formation of  Cornwallis's  movements,  discussing  with  him 
their  probable  object,  thanking  him  for  the  supplies  he  is 
furnishing,  and  sending  him  arms  and  ammunition,  the 
General  continues,  "  I  fully  agree  with  you  that  vigorous 
measures  are  necessary  to  strike  terror  into  our  enemies, 
and  give  spirit  to  our  people."  And  the  next  day  he  again 
writes,  ''  Be  in  readiness  to  join  us  if  necessity  requires  it, 
but  you  may  depend  upon  not  being  called  from  the 
Congaree  but  from  the  most  pressing  necessity ;  for  I  am 
as  fully  impressed  ivith  the  advantages  of  your  continuing 
there  as  you  can  6e."  So  diligent  was  Sumter  in  his  re- 
ports to  his  general  at  this  time,  that  he  appears  to  have 
made  some  apology  for  troubling  him  with  his  commu- 
nications, for  Greene  writes  to  him  in  this  letter :  ''  Your 
writing  needs  no  apology,  rely  upon  it.  I  understand  you 
perfectly,  and  meet  with  no  difficulty  in  reading  your 
letters.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  plain,  clear,  and  intel- 
ligible." It  thus  appears  that  both  Lee  and  Sumter  urged 
upon  Greene  the  importance  of  striking  beyond  the  Con- 
garee, and  that  Greene  expressed  himself  to  both  of  them 
as  convinced  in  regard  to  it.  Sumter's  course  at  this  time 
is  thus  fully  vindicated  by  Greene  himself.  The  general, 
through  his  own  mistake,  had  deceived  himself  as  to  the 
number  of  men  Sumter  had  hoped  to  bring  into  the  field, 
and  suffered  much  under  the  disappointment,  the  blame 
for  which  he  continued  to  visit  upon  him.  Then  Sumter 
had  taken  position  as  agreed  upon  between  himself  and 
Major  Hyrne,  sent  by  the  commander  to  arrange  it  with 
him.  Then  he  orders  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee  to  join  him 
upon  his  defeat  at  Hobkirk's  Hill.     The  order  to  the  two 


212  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

latter  he  himself  revokes,  and  yields  to  Sumter's  remon- 
strances, again  made  through  Major  Hyrne,  as  to  him ;  and 
now,  ten  da3^s  afterwards,  he  declares  himself  as  fully  im- 
pressed with  the  advantages  of  Sumter's  course  as  Sumter 
himself  could  be.  All  this  is  fully  explained  by  Johnson, 
and  yet,  in  a  subsequent  summary  of  the  causes  of  com- 
plaint which  Greene  had  against  Sumter,  that  author 
enumerates  Sumter's  failure  to  join  him  at  this  time  as  one 
of  them,  and  adds  to  it  another.  "  When,"  says  this  author, 
"  he  was  ordered  to  march  toward  Camden  and  form  a 
junction  with  the  main  army,  General  Greene  yielded  to 
his  remonstrances,  and  revoked  the  order,  substituting  for 
it  a  particular  charge  to  watch  the  movements  of  Colonel 
Watson  to  the  west  of  the  Wateree,  and  prevent  his  junc- 
tion with  Lord  Rawdon,  when,  instead  of  bending  his 
whole  attention  to  this  object,  .  .  .  Watson  was  suffered  to 
pass  him,  and  Rawdon  again  acquired  the  command  of  the 
field."  1 

This  additional  charg-e  aijainst  Sumter  is  best  answered 
by  the  previous  narration  of  the  same  author.  Thus  he 
says 2  it  appears  that  Sumter  was  not  only  released  from  the 
order  to  form  a  junction  with  the  commander  at  this  time, 
but  particularly  charged  with  the  execution  of  most  impor- 
tant services.  The  punctuality  with  which  they  were 
executed  is  attested  by  the  numerous  communications  of 
this  period,  not  only  daily  as  required,  but  repeated  as 
often  as  the  occurrences  of  the  day  rendered  it  proper. 
Provisions  were  sent,  the  communications  of  the  enemy 
assiduously  watched,  swamps  explored  to  cut  off  the  enemy's 
supplies,  and  particular  attention  paid  to  the  approach  to 
Camden,  by  the  west  side  of  the  Wateree.  Yet  Watson 
managed  to  elude  all  their  preparations  to  cut  him  off. 
Major  McArthur  appears  on  this  occasion  to  have  exhibited 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  213.  2  /^j-^;.,  109. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  213 

the  character  of  an  active  and  enterprising  soldier.  He 
commanded  a  corps  of  indifferent  cavalry  formed  of  drafts 
of  the  Hessian  troops  at  the  time  in  Charlestown.  Scouring 
the  country  in  front  of  Watson,  he  appears  to  have  com- 
pletely masked  his  advance,  and,  after  throwing  twenty- 
five  of  his  command  under  Doyle  into  Camden,  to  have 
returned  to  Fort  Motte,  and  succeeded  in  getting  into 
that  place  a  piece  of  artillery. 

No  intelligence  reached  Sumter  of  the  approach  of  Watson 
until  the  latter  was  discovered  crossing  the  Wateree. 
Immediately,  as  he  was  apprised  of  the  fact,  he  despatched 
250  of  his  mounted  men  with  orders  to  harass  and  detain 
him  until  he  could  advance  with  the  infantry  on  his  left 
whilst  Marion  came  up  in  his  rear.  But  Watson,  by  a 
rapid  and  unremitting  march,  succeeded  in  crossing  the 
ferry  opposite  the  present  Stateburg  and,  with  the  Wateree 
between  himself  and  his  enemy,  proceeded  in  safety  to  join 
Rawdon  with  500  men.^ 

Johnson's  defence  of  Sumter  for  not  joining  Greene  is 
coupled,  it  will  be  observed,  with  the  allegation  that  he 
was  particularly  charged  with  the  duty  of  watching  Watson 
and  preventing  his  junction  with  Rawdon.  But  this  is 
scarcely  just.  It  was  Marion  and  Lee  who  had  been 
.opposing  Watson,  and  who,  as  soon  as  released  from 
Greene's  order  to  join  him,  returned  at  once  to  intercept 
him.  It  was  only  incidentally  that  Sumter  was  charged  to 
look  after  him.  Greene  writes  to  Sumter  his  apprehension 
that  if  both  Marion  and  Lee  crossed  the  Santee  as  he  had 
ordered  them  to  do,  that  Watson  would  evade  them,  and 
directs  Sumter  to  keep  himself  informed  as  to  the  move- 
ments of  both  Watson  and  McArthur.  Colonel  Lee 
himself,  so  prompt  as  he  always  was  to  put  blame  upon 
Sumter,  does  not  in  this  case  think  of  doing  so,  but  assumes 
1  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  360. 


214  HISTOEY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

upon  Marion  and  himself  the  miscarriage.  He  says :  ^  "  Had 
these  two  officers  [Marion  and  himself]  confined  their 
attention  entirely  to  the  north  side  of  the  river,  the  much- 
desired  interception  would  have  been  effected:  for  with 
horse,  foot,  and  artillery  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a 
corps  of  infantry  only  could  make  good  its  landing  in  the 
face  of  an  equal  foe,  and  secure  its  arrival  into  Camden. 
Mortified  with  the  result  of  their  unceasing  exertions,  the 
deranging  information  was  immediately  forwarded  to  Gen- 
eral Greene,  and  the  disappointed  commandants  moved 
upon  Fort  Motte." 

On  the  3d  of  May  Greene  had  received  information  of 
the  delay  which  had  attended  Marion's  movements  to  cut 
off  Watson  on  the  south  of  the  Santee,  and  he  foresaw 
that  not  a  moment  would  be  lost  by  Lord  Rawdon  in  strik- 
ing a  blow  at  the  main  army  should  Watson  succeed  in 
reaching  Camden.  Information  had  also  been  received  of 
the  advance  of  the  Virginia  militia  which  he  had  been  so 
impatiently  expecting.  He  resolved,  therefore,  to  wait  in 
covert  whilst  his  detachments  were  overrunning  the  State. 
For  this  he  had  to  thank  Sumter's  wisdom,  as  the  whole 
country  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Congaree  was  now  com- 
manded by  Sumter's  parties,  protecting  him  against  any 
attack  from  that  quarter,  and  securing  to  him  the  provis- 
ions which  had  been  husbanded  by  the  enemy  in  that  fertile 
part  of  the  State,  and  from  which  he  immediately  began 
to  draw  supplies  of  meat,  the  great  want  in  the  American 
camp. 2 

Anticipating  Rawdon's  advance  as  soon  as  joined  by 
Watson,  Greene  had  chosen  a  position  nine  miles  in  the 
rear  of  his  encampment  on  Twenty-five  Mile  Creek.  This 
was   at   a   point  just   beyond   the   present    dividing  line 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  343. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  111. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  215 

between  Kershaw  and  Fairfield  counties,  in  the  latter, 
where  the  road,  running  parallel  with  the  Wateree  on  its 
western  side,  crosses  Colonel's  Creek,  the  north  bank  of 
which  was  commanding.  Here,  he  had  determined,  the 
enemy  were  to  be  met. 

On  the  6th  of  May  Greene  wrote  Sumter  from  Twenty- 
five  Mile  Creek :  — 

"  I  am  exceeding  sorry  that  Col.  Watson  has  found  means  to  get 
into  Camden.  This  reenf  orcement,  if  Col.  Small  ^  is  with  Watson,  will 
enable  Lord  Rawdon  to  attack  us.  I  am  also  a  little  apprehensive 
for  the  safety  of  Col.  Lee's  detachment  who  is  ordered  to  join  the 
army  on  this  side  of  the  river.  Should  the  enemy  attempt  anything 
against  you  or  him  you  will  form  a  junction,  and  for  this  purpose  you 
will  advise  Col.  Lee  of  your  situation  and  point  out  to  him  the  safest 
and  best  route  to  form  a  junction  with  me.  Don't  run  any  great  haz- 
ard until  the  Virginia  militia  come  up,  which  will  enable  you  to  push 
your  operations  with  rapidity  and  safety."  ^ 

The  date  of  this  letter,  the  original  of  which  is  now 
before  us,  is  undoubtedly  the  6th ;  and  yet  on  the  7th 
Greene  writes  to  Marion  :  "  Col.  Watson  I  find  is  on  his 
way  to  Camden.  This  is  a  rather  unfortunate  circumstance, 
as  the  enemy  will  begin  to  be  impudent  and  to  show  them- 
selves without  their  works,  which  they  have  never  ven- 
tured upon  since  the  morning  of  the  25th."  ^  There  is  no 
doubt  that  it  was  on  the  7th  that  Watson  reached  Camden, 
for  Lord  Rawdon  so  reports  to  Cornwallis.*  On  that  night 
his  lordship  crossed  the  Wateree  at  Camden  Ferry  to  turn 
the  flank  and  attack  the  rear  of  Greene's  army,  where  the 
ground  was   not   strong.^     Greene   had,  however,  moved 

1  In  the  MS.  it  appears  to  be  "Small"  or  "Smole."  There  was  no 
officer  of  such  a  name.    It  is  doubtless  Colonel  Doyle  who  is  meant. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Tear  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  96,  97. 
»  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  67. 

*  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  476  ;  Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy,  vol.  I, 
481. 
6  Ibid. 


216  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

early  that  afternoon.  Breaking  up  his  camp  upon  an 
hour's  notice,  he  had  fallen  back  to  a  safe  position  beyond 
an  intermediate  stream  called  Sawney's  Creek  and  encamped 
for  the  night.  Rawdon  approached,  drove  in  his  pickets 
and  examined  his  position,  but,  finding  it  so  strong  that  he 
could  not  have  forced  it  without  much  loss,  he  recrossed 
the  Wateree  and  returned  to  Camden  that  evening. 

Upon  the  publication  of  Johnson's  Life  of  Grreene,  a  bitter 
controversy  took  place  between  Mr.  Heniy  Lee,  the  son  of 
Colonel  Lee,  and  the  author  of  that  work  in  regard  to  the 
course  and  views  of  General  Greene  at  this  time ;  ^  but  it 
is  difficult  now  to  perceive  why  Mr.  Lee,  the  author  of  the 
Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas^  so  warmly  assailed  the  account 
given  by  Judge  Johnson  upon  the  authority  of  Colonel 
Davie,  as  his  own  differs  with  that  rather  in  regard  to  the 
motives  of  the  American  commander  upon  the  occasion 
than  as  to  his  conduct.  They  agree  that  at  this  time  Gen- 
eral Greene  had  determined  to  give  up  his  attempt  for  the 
recovery  of  the  State,  as  Colonel  Lee  himself  intimated 
that  he  intended  to  do,  and  to  leave  it  to  its  fate.  John- 
son's authority  for  this  is  a  circumstantial  and  detailed 
account  of  a  conference  between  Greene  and  Colonel  Davie, 
who  was  then  serving  upon  Greene's  staff,  as  given  by 
Davie  himself.^ 

"This  evening  "  [the  9th],  says  Davie,  "the  General  sent  for  me  ear- 
lier than  usual ;  I  found  the  map  on  the  table,  and  he  introduced  the 
business  of  the  night  with  the  following  striking  observations  :  '  You 
see  we  must  again  resume  the  partisan  war.  Rawdon  has  now  a  de- 
cided superiority  of  force  —  he  has  pushed  us  to  a  suflicient  distance 
to  leave  him  free  to  act  on  any  object  within  his  reach.  He  will  strike 
at  Lee  and  Marion,  reenforce  himself  by  all  the  troops  that  can  be 
spared  from  the  several  garrisons,  and  push  me  back  to  the  mountains. 

1  The  City  Gazette^  Charleston,  April,  May,  and  June,  1822  ;  Campaigns 
in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  1824. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  116-118. 


IN  THE   EE VOLUTION  217 

You  acted  in  this  quarter  in  the  last  campaign.  I  wish  you  to  point 
out  the  military  positions  on  both  sides  the  river  ascending  to  the 
mountains,  and  give  me  the  necessary  information  as  to  the  prospect 
of  subsistence.  You  observe  our  dangerous  and  critical  situation. 
The  regular  troops  are  now  reduced  to  a  handful,  and  I  am  without  mili- 
tia to  perform  the  convoy  or  detachment  service,  or  any  immediate 
prospect  of  receiving  any  reenforcement.  .  .  .  North  Carolina  dispirited 
by  the  loss  of  her  regular  troops  in  Charleston,  stunned  into  a  kind  of 
stupor  by  the  defeat  of  Gates,  and  held  in  check  by  Major  Craig  and 
the  loyalists,  makes  no  effort  of  any  kind.  Congress  seems  to  have 
lost  sight  of  the  Southern  States  and  have  abandoned  them  to  their 
fate,  so  much  so  that  I  am  even  as  much  distressed  for  ammunition 
as  for  men. 

"  '  We  must  always  calculate  on  the  maxim  "  that  your  enemy  will 
do  what  he  ought  to  do."  We  will  dispute  every  inch  of  ground  in 
the  best  manner  we  can,  but  Rawdon  will  push  me  back  to  the  moun- 
tains. Lord  Cornwallis  will  establish  a  chain  of  posts  along  the 
James  River  and  the  Southern  States  thus  cut  off  will  die  like  the 
tail  of  a  snake.' 

"  These  are  his  very  words,"  says  Davie.  "  They  made  a  deep  and 
melancholy  impression  and  I  shall  never  forget  them. 

"  After  expressing  an  anxious  desire  to  remain  as  near  as  possible 
to  cover  the  retreat  of  Lee  from  Fort  Motte,  we  recurred  again  to  the 
map  where  I  had  it  in  my  power  to  assure  him  from  personal  knowl- 
edge that  the  country  abounded  in  strong  positions ;  and  as  to  subsist- 
ence there  would  be  no  difficulty,  as  we  should  be  falling  back  on  our 
depots  or  magazines  in  North  Carolina;  that  if  he  was  obliged  to 
retreat  further  he  must  permit  me  to  resume  my  original  plan,  as  I 
was  morally  certain  a  respectable  force  could  be  raised  in  the  western 
districts  of  that  State."  .  .  . 

"  General  Greene  possessed,  in  an  eminent  degree,  those  high  ener- 
gies requisite  to  conquer  appalling  difficulties,  united  with  that  cool 
and  moral  courage  which  resists  the  anguish  of  disappointment  and  the 
pressure  of  misfortune.  I  never  observed  his  mind  yield  but  at  this 
gloomy  moment  when  he  conceived  himself  not  only  abandoned  by  all 
the  constituted  authorities  of  the  confederacy,  but  even  by  that  por- 
tion of  the  population  of  the  Southern  States  who  had  everything  to 
hope  from  his  success  and  everything  to  fear  from  his  failure.  I  em- 
ployed the  whole  night  in  writing  until  an  orderly  sergeant  sum- 
moned me  to  headquarters  about  daylight.   On  entering  the  General's 


218  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

tent  I  soon  perceived  some  important  change  had  taken  place. 
*  I  have  sent  for  you,'  said  he,  with  a  countenance  expressing  the 
most  lively  pleasure,  '  to  inform  you  that  Lord  Rawdon  is  preparing 
to  evacuate  Camden  —  that  place  was  the  key  of  the  enemy's  line  of 
posts,  they  will  now  all  fall  or  be  evacuated  —  all  will  now  go  well. 
Burn  your  letters,  I  shall  march  immediately  to  the  Congaree.  Ar- 
range your  convoys  to  follow  us.  And  let  me  know  what  expresses 
and  detachments  you  want." 

Mr.  Lee,  while  severely  criticising  this  statement,  and 
doubting  either  the  accuracy  of  Colonel  Davie's  recollec- 
tion, whose  veracity  he,  however,  declares  is  beyond  impu- 
tation, or  of  Judge  Johnson's  recording,  the  inaccuracy  of 
which  he  does  not  hesitate  to  charge  as  more  probable, 
declares  that  the  conversation,  if  correctly  remembered  by 
Colonel  Davie,  will  show  a  surprising  mutability  of  mind 
in  General  Greene  and  a  variation  of  views  on  the  same 
day  which  cannot  be  accounted  for.  But  this  is  assuming 
the  very  matter  in  question.  Was  not  this  the  very  fault 
of  General  Greene's  mind?  Was  he  not  subject  alike  to 
fits  of  confidence  and  despondency?  How  confident  he 
was  on  the  morning  of  the  25th  of  April,  not  only  of  de- 
feating Lord  Rawdon,  but  of  capturing  his  whole  army ; 
and  yet  by  night  was  lie  not  calling  upon  Sumter,  Marion, 
and  Lee,  each  and  all,  to  hasten  to  his  rescue  ?  Irresolu- 
tion and  indecision  of  mind  were  characteristics  which  his 
enemies  attributed  to  him,  and  to  which  they  considered 
their  victory  at  Hobkirk's  Hill  was  owing.^ 

But,  however  that  may  be.  Colonel  Davie's  statement, 
which  was,  no  doubt,  correctly  given  by  Judge  Johnson, 
presents  the  conduct  of  Greene  in  its  most  favorable  aspect, 
for  it  represents  him  contemplating  a  retreat  upon  public 
grounds  alone,  and  then  only  from  position  to  position  as 
he  might  be  forced,  after  vigorous  resistance ;  while  that  of 

1  Annual  Begister,  vol.  XXIV,  81. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  219 

Dr.  Irvine  and  Judge  Peter  Johnston  represent  him  as  bent 
upon  a  hasty  and  unconditional  abandonment  of  the  State, 
in  which  personal  ambition  was  in  a  great  measure  the 
ruling  motive ;  and,  strange  to  say,  Mr.  Lee  greatly 
strengthens  the  latter  view  by  the  publication  of  a  letter 
from  General  Greene  to  his  father.  Colonel  Lee,  written 
on  the  very  day  in  the  evening  of  which  General  Davie 
states  his  interview  with  General  Greene  to  have  taken 
place. 1     It  is  as  follows :  — 

"  Colonel's  Creek,  May  9,  1781. 

"  Dear  Sir :  —  I  have  not  time  to  write  in  cyphers.^  Yours  of  the 
8th  by  Captain  Davis  was  delivered  me  last  evening.  We  have  no 
further  intelligence  from  Lord  Cornwallis,  and  therefore  I  am  per- 
suaded he  has  gone  northerly.  General  Philips  is  at  Petersburg,  and 
our  army  beaten  back ;  but  whether  the  Marquis  or  the  Pennsylvania 
line  has  arrived  I  am  not  informed.  Keep  this  a  secret,  as  it  is  not 
known  here.  We  moved  our  camp  night  before  last  from  Twenty- 
five  Miles  Creek  to  Sandy  Creek,^  five  miles  higher  up  the  river.  Loni 
Rawdon  came  out  yesterday  morning  as  I  expected  he  would,  and  I 
suppose  with  an  expectation  of  finding  us  at  the  old  encampment.  I 
did  not  like  our  new  position  to  risk  an  action  in,  and  ordered  the 
troops  to  take  a  new  position  at  this  place,  four  miles  still  higher  up 
the  river,  leaving  on  the  ground  the  horse,  the  pickets,  and  infantry. 
The  enemy  came  up  in  front  of  our  encampment  and  drew  up  in 
order  of  battle,  but  did  not  dare  to  attempt  to  cross  the  creek,  and, 
after  waiting  an  hour  or  two,  retired  suddenly  towards  Camden. 
Major  Hyrne  having  made  you  fully  acquainted  with  my  general  plan 
of  operations  it  will  be  unnecessary  for  me  to  be  more  explicit  on  that 
head.  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  find  that  your  sentiments  so  per- 
fectly correspond  with  mine  in  all  points  except  the  duty  of^  310  [Gen- 

1  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas,  355-357. 

■^  General  Greene,  it  will  be  observed,  was  then  in  the  habit  of  corre- 
sponding in  cipher  with  Colonel  Lee,  and  in  cipher  discussing  Sumter  and 
Marion,  under  whom  he  was  yet  placing  Lee  to  operate.  It  will  be  seen, 
too,  that  he  used  the  "  alphabet  of  figures,"  which  he  had  used  in  corre- 
spondence with  his  partners  of  Barnabas  Deane  &  Co.,  while  quarter- 
master. 

3  Sawney  Creek.  *  Italics  the  author's. 


220  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

eral  Greene  i] .  This  I  suppose  you  mean  as  a  compliment,  upon  your 
general  principles  that  all  men  are  fond  of  flattery.  But  you  will  give 
me  leave  to  tell  you  that  if  306  [Lord  Cornwallis]  is  gone  to  the  northward 
great  abilities  will  not  he  wanted  here.  The  plan  being  laid,  and  a  posi- 
tion taken,  the  rest  will  be  a  war  of  posts,  and  the  most  that  will  be  left  to 
be  performed  by  the  commanding  officer  until  we  come  to  Camden,  is  to 
make  proper  detachments  and  give  command  of  them  to  proper  officers. 
The  plan  being  laid,  the  glory  roill  belong  to  the  executive  officers  executing 
the  business.  The  benefit  resulting  from  our  operations  will  in  a 
great  measure  depend  upon  the  proper  management  of  affairs  in  Vir- 
ginia. If  the  principal  officer  in  the  enemy's  interest  is  there,  who 
should  be  opposed  to  him?  Which  will  be  more  honorable,  to  be 
active  there  or  laying,  as  it  were,  idle  here  ?  From  whence  comes  our 
supplies  to  the  quarter,  and  who  is  most  likely  to  give  timely  and 
necessary  support  to  all  parts  of  the  department ;  one  that  has  but  a 
partial  interest  or  one  that  is  interested  equally  in  all  the  parts  ?  I 
am  confident  nothing  will  come  to  this  army,  and  all  things  be  in 
confusion  if  310  [General  Greene]  was  not  to  go  to  the  northward. 
Therefore,  whether  taken  up  in  a  military,  personal,  or  public  view,  I  am 
decided  it  is  his  interest  and  duty  to  go,  nor  can  I  conceive  the  great  in- 
conveniences will  arise  from  it  you  mention.    I  am  confident  B s  ^ 

will  arrange  matters  very  well  and  310  [General  Greene]  will  take 
care  to  direct  him  to  the  proper  objects  to  employ.  Much  is  to  be 
done  in  Virginia,  and  without  great  prudence  on  our  part  matters  may 
be  reduced  to  great  extremity  there ;  and  depend  upon  it  the  enemy's 
great  push  will  be  against  that  State,  as  it  may  be  said  in  some 
sorts  to  sever  the  continental  interest  asunder.  More  advantage  will 
result  from  310's  [General  Greene]  going  than  staying ;  for  he  can 
serve  them  more  effectually  yonder  than  here ;  and  vanity  will  lead  him 
to  think  that  he  can  oppose  the  enemy  more  effectually  there  than  those  that 
will  command  if  he  don't  go.  I  perceive  that  312  [General  Marion]  is 
not  satisfied,  and  I  think  you  are  not  mistaken  respecting  311  [General 
Sumter].  However,  be  careful,  be  cautious,  be  prudent,  and,  above 
all,  attentive.  This  with  men  as  well  as  with  ladies  goes  a  great 
way,"  etc. 

1  The  names  in  brackets  are  those  given  in  the  text  of  Mr.  Henry  Lee's 
work. 

2  Supposed  to  refer  to  General  Isaac  Huger,  who  was  next  in  command 
to  General  Greene,  and  with  whom  he  would  naturally  leave  any  part  of 
the  Continentals  he  would  not  take  with  him  to  Virginia. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  221 

What  a  change  had  apparently  come  over  this  officer. 
When,  adopting  Lee's  plan,  he  was  about  to  return  to  South 
Carolina,  he  had  written  to  General  Washington  from  Deep 
River,  March  29th :  — 

"  In  this  critical  and  distressing  situation  I  am  determined  to  carry 
the  war  immediately  into  South  Carolina.  The  enemy  will  be  obliged 
to  follow  us  or  give  up  his  posts  in  that  State.  If  the  former  takes 
place  it  will  draw  the  war  out  of  this  State  and  give  it  an  opportunity 
to  raise  its  proportion  of  men.  If  they  leave  their  posts  to  fall,  they 
must  lose  more  than  they  can  gain  here.  If  we  continue  in  this  State, 
the  enemy  will  hold  their  possessions  in  both.  All  these  things  con- 
sidered I  think  the  movement  is  warranted  by  the  soundest  reasons 
both  political  and  military.  The  manoeuvre  will  be  critical  and 
dangerous,  and  the  troops  exposed  to  every  hardship.  But  as  I  share 
it  with  them,  I  hope  they  will  bear  up  under  it  with  that  magnanimity 
which  has  already  supported  them,  and  for  which  they  deserve  every- 
thing of  their  country."  ^ 

He  had  thus  contemplated  both  contingencies,  and  de- 
termined upon  the  move  as  a  wise  one,  whether  Cornwallis 
followed  him  into  South  Carolina,  or  left  South  Carolina  to 
its  fate  and  moved  northwardly.  In  either  event  he  would 
share  with  his  troops  the  danger  to  which  he  would  expose 
them  in  so  critical  a  moment.  The  movement  was  made, 
and  now,  upon  the  first  reverse,  he  determines  to  abandon 
the  great  enterprise  he  had  so  confidentl}^  inaugurated,  and 
to  desert  the  troops  whom  he  had  led  upon  so  inglorious  an 
expedition.  "  This  letter,"  i.e.  the  letter  to  Lee  of  the  9th, 
says  the  author  of  the  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas.,  "  reveals 
a  disposition  of  mind  and  a  direction  of  views  not  only  at 
variance,  but  incompatible  with  the  sentiments  contained 
in  the  statement  given  from  Colonel  Davie.  Li  the  latter 
General  Greene  is  desponding,  intent  upon  projecting  his 
retreat,  and  solicitous  for  the  safety  of  Lee.  In  the  former 
his  mind  is  buoyant  and  lively,  his  views  ambitious  and 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  37. 


222  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

extensive;  he  considers  the  war  in  Carolina,  whose  pros- 
pective magnificence  had  tempted  him  from  Deep  River  as 
curtailed  in  extent,  limited  in  consequences,  pale  in  repu- 
tation, and  subordinate  in  dignity  —  deems  the  field  which 
was  soon  to  wave  with  laurels  of  Eutaw  as  destitute  alike 
of  danger  and  glory  and  no  longer  worthy  of  his  abilities, 
and  is  decided,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  Lee  — 
always  attentive  to  his  general  fame  —  to  seek  a  more 
splendid  theatre  in  Virginia  and  support  and  direct  his 
lieutenant  in  Carolina,  and,  as  he  says,  to  satisfy  in  so 
doing  his  interests  and  duty  in  a  military,  personal,  and 
public  point  of  view.^^  ^ 

However  wavering  Greene's  conduct  was  in  this  cam- 
paign, his  views  as  represented  by  Davie  and  by  his  own 
letters  do  not  appear  as  inconsistent  as  Mr.  Lee  contends. 
In  either  case  his  declared  purpose  was  to  abandon  South 
Carolina.  With  Colonel  Davie  he  discusses  the  movement 
in  its  public  and  military  aspect.  With  Colonel  Lee  he  con- 
siders it  in  its  personal  bearing  upon  his  own  reputation. 
In  regard  to  the  latter  Mr.  Lee  observes :  "  It  is  impos- 
sible to  foresee  the  extent  or  to  be  blind  to  the  magnitude 
of  the  mischief  which  the  execution  of  Greene's  project 
would  have  produced.  Had  he  proceeded  to  Virginia  and 
abdicated  the  honors  of  the  scene  before  him,  however 
fine  and  generous  his  motive,  the  spirit  and  organization 
of  his  army,  already  greatly  impaired,  would  have  been 
abolished  ;  the  comparative  strength  of  the  enemy  doubled ; 
the  Loyalists  encouraged  to  a  fearful  preponderance ;  the 
desultory  ardor  and  dangerous  activity  of  Marion  and 
Pickens  would  have  subsided  ;  the  three  Southern  States 
been  lost  without  a  blow  and  the  issue  of  the  struggle,  if 
not  changed,  at  least  grievously  protracted.  Recent  from  a 
defeat  at  Camden  he  would  have  appeared  in  Virginia  with 
1  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas,  359. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  223 

the  disgrace,  but  without  the  grandeur,  of  Gates's  reverse  — 
would  soon  have  been  superseded  by  Washington,  and 
either  retained  as  an  inferior  in  command  or  ordered  back 
to  the  South  with  less  reputation  and  worse  prospects  than 
he  had  left  behind  him."i 

From  all  of  this  the  author  of  the  Campaigns  in  the 
CaroUnas  claims  that  it  was  Lee's  advice  and  remonstrance 
which  saved  his  commander,  and  with  a  sneer  at  the  desul- 
tory ardor  and  dangerous  activity  of  Marion,  without  even 
the  mention  of  Sumter,  he  attributes  to  the  plan  of  which 
we  think  he  has  shown  his  father  to  be  the  author,  all 
the  success  which  followed.  "  And  so  irresistible  was  the 
design,"  he  writes,  "that  although  its  execution  was  de- 
feated in  two  cardinal  points  by  the  wonderful  spirit  and 
vigor  of  Lord  Rawdon ;  although  Greene  with  the  main 
army  did  not  succeed  in  a  single  effort  incident  to  it,  yet  the 
enemy,  twice  demonstrated  to  be  masters  of  the  field,  were 
rebuked  by  its  genius,  and  vanquished  by  its  strength. 
They  drove  Greene  from  Camden  with  disgrace  and 
slaughter  —  they  offered  and  he  declined  battle ;  but  the 
power  of  the  plan,  aided  only  by  the  swift  though  subordinate 
successes  of  Lee,  either  combined  with  Marion  or  alone, 
forced  Lord  Rawdon  to  yield  the  upper  district  and  leave 
Ninety  Six  and  Augusta  to  their  fate."  ^ 

Thus  complacently  does  this  author  claim  for  his  father 
all  the  results  of  the  partisan  warfare  which  had  been 
carried  on  by  the  volunteers  in  South  Carolina  under 
Sumter,  Davie,  Marion,  Pickens,  and  Harden !  to  say 
nothing  of  what  had  been  done  by  Shelby,  Sevier,  Cleve- 
land, Campbell,  Clarke,  and  McCall.  The  important  point 
to  be  noted  here,  however,  is  that  Greene,  who  has  been 
held  up  as  a  reconqueror  and  redeemer  of  South  Carolina, 
had  determined  upon,  and  was  on  the  point  of,  abandoning 
^  Campaigns  in  the  CaroUnas,  362.  2  ii)i^,^  331-332. 


224  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  State;  and  was  only  deterred  from  doing  so  by  an 
event  which  he  had  but  little  part  in  bringing  about.  As 
far  as  General  Greene  is  concerned,  he  had  deliberately 
made  up  his  mind  to  forsake  South  Carolina  for  a  field 
in  which  he  thought  greater  personal  reputation  could  be 
achieved. 


CHAPTER  X 

1781 

Lord  Rawdon  declares  that  he  had  always  reprobated 
the  station  at  Camden,  not  merely  from  the  extraordinary 
disadvantages  which  attended  it  as  an  individual  position, 
but  from  its  being  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  river  and 
covering  nothing,  while  it  was  constantly  liable  to  have 
its  communication  with  the  interior  district  interrupted. 
Lord  Cornwallis,  he  says,  did  not  consider  how  much  he 
augmented  this  objection,  often  urged  to  him,  by  an  ar- 
rangement whereby  he  (Rawdon)  was  debarred  from  any 
interference  with  the  district  from  which  alone  he  could 
be  fed,  the  country  in  front  of  Camden,  as  well  as  that 
between  the  Wateree  and  Broad  River,  being  so  wasted 
as  to  afford  nothing  beyond  precarious  and  incidental  sup- 
plies.i  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee  each  perceived  this  as 
well  as  Rawdon.  Greene  alone  seems  not  to  have  appre- 
ciated its  importance.  Acting  upon  it  during  Greene's 
absence  in  North  Carolina  with  the  Continental  troops, 
the  volunteer  bands  under  Sumter,  Marion,  Postell,  and 
Harden  had  kept  a  continual  warfare  in  Lord  Rawdon's 
rear,  had  fought,  as  we  have  seen,  twenty-six  engagements, 
had  taken  his  posts,  seized  upon  his  trains,  captured  his 
garrisons  and  convoys,  and  had  killed,  wounded,  and  taken 
prisoner  many  of  his  men.  Colonel  Lee  is  justly  entitled, 
we  think,  to  the  credit  of  suggesting  to  and  urging  upon 

1  Letter  to  Colonel  Lee,  Appendix  to  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776, 

r.i5. 

VOL,  IV.  —  Q  225 


226  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

General  Greene  his  return  to  South  Carolina,  and  opera- 
tions here  which  would  engage  Lord  Rawdon's  attention 
at  Camden  while  these  attacks  should  be  continued  in  his 
rear.  But  for  the  scheme  of  carrying  on  the  war  in  this 
way  as  low  down  in  the  country  as  possible  he  has  no  claim 
to  originality,  as  that  was  in  successful  operation  before  he 
proposed  his  plan  to  the  commander.  Sumter  had  pushed 
across  Rawdon's  rear  to  within  fifty  miles  of  Charlestown, 
besieged  his  posts,  destroyed  convoys,  and  captured  pris- 
oners. Marion  had  beaten  and  pursued  McLeroth,  had 
fought  Watson  and  driven  him  across  the  country  to 
Georgetown ;  Pickens  had  cut  to  pieces  Dunlap's  party  in 
Ninety  Six ;  and  Harden,  carrying  the  war  almost  to  the 
gates  of  Charlestown,  had  advanced  still  farther  into  the 
Low-Country  and  captured  Fort  Balfour,  and  when  Lee 
returned  to  the  State  with  Greene,  was  moving  to  form  a 
junction  with  Pickens  on  the  Savannah.  Rawdon's  com- 
munications were  thus  completely  broken  up  before  Lee's 
suggestion  to  Greene.  This,  indeed,  was  the  very  point 
of  difference  between  Greene  and  Sumter.  From  his  first 
assumption  of  the  command  Greene  had  discouraged  and 
disparaged  this  system  of  warfare.  The  salvation  of  the 
army  didn't  depend  upon  *'  little  strokes,"  he  had  written 
to  Sumter.  Partisan  affairs  in  war,  he  said,  were  "like 
the  garnish  to  a  table,  —  they  gave  splendor  to  the  army 
and  reputation  to  the  officers,  but  they  afforded  no  sub- 
stantial national  security."  This  war  was  not  one  of  posts, 
he  said,  but  of  contests  of  States.  Sumter,  on  the  other 
hand,  believed  in  the  system  of  constant  attrition,  by  which 
the  invading  army  would  be  worn  away  piece  by  piece. 
Greene  wished  to  see  a  battle  in  grand  array.  He  wished 
to  collect  all  his  forces  on  some  great  field,  and  then  lose 
or  win  it  all  in  some  famous  action  of  which  he  would  be 
the  hero.     He  did  not  like  this  business  in  which  his  sub- 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  227 

ordinates  were  achieving  fame.  Urging  upon  Colonel  Lee 
the  reasons  of  his  wish  to  abandon  South  Carolina  for  what 
he  thought  a  more  conspicuous  field,  he  makes  this  signifi- 
cant observation  :  "  The  plan  being  laid,"  that  is,  of  par- 
tisan war  on  South  Carolina,  "and  a  position  taken,  the 
rest  will  be  a  war  of  posts,  and  the  most  that  will  be  left 
to  be  performed  by  the  commanding  officer  until  we  come 
to  Camden  is  to  make  proper  detachments,  and  give  the 
command  of  them  to  proper  officers.  The  plan  being  laid, 
the  glory  will  belong  to  the  executive  officer  executing  the  busi- 
ness.''^ It  was  this  jealousy  of  Sumter,  of  Marion,  and  of 
Lee  himself,  which  induced  Greene  to  desire  to  have  them 
under  his  immediate  personal  direction.  But  the  British 
at  home,  as  well  as  Lord  Rawdon  in  the  field,  appreciated, 
as  we  have  seen,  very  differently  what  had  been  accom- 
plished by  the  "  little  strokes  "  of  one  partisan  leader.^ 

There  was  another  aspect  of  vast  importance  in  this  sys- 
tem of  warfare,  which  Greene  overlooked.  The  breaking 
up  of  his  posts  and  the  interruptions  of  communication 
were  the  material  results  to  the  enemy ;  but  of  far  greater 
consequence  was  the  moral  effect  upon  the  people  of  the 
State.  The  first  fruit  of  Lord  Rawdon's  victory  in  his 
front,  it  was  said  in  England, ^  was  the  general  revolt  of 
the  whole  interior  country  at  his  back ;  so  that  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  situation,  instead  of  being  removed  or  lessened 
by  success,  were  increased  to  such  a  degree  as  to  render 
them  insurmountable. 

Greene's  determination  to  abandon  the  State  for  a  field  of 
greater  fame,  as  has  been  seen,  was  suddenly  changed  by 
the  information  that  Lord  Rawdon  was  preparing  to  evac- 
uate Camden.  To  this  necessity  his  lordship  had  been 
reduced,  not  by  the  advance  of  Greene's  army,  for  that  he 
had  so  beaten  on  the  25th  of  April  that  it  declined  to 
1  A7mual  Register,  vol.  XXIV,  83.  2  jncl. 


228  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

meet  him  again  when  he  moved  out  to  invite  action  on  the 
7th  of  May,  but  by  the  operations  in  his  rear.  With  his 
communications  then  entirely  broken  up,  Lord  Rawdon,on 
the  9th,  published  to  the  troops  and  to  the  loyal  militia 
his  design  of  abandoning  Camden,  and  offering  to  such 
people  of  the  latter  place  as  chose  to  accompany  the  army 
all  possible  assistance.  He  spent  the  night  in  destroying 
the  works,  and  in  sending  off,  under  a  strong  escort,  his 
baggage.  To  cover  the  movement,  the  remainder  of  the 
troops  continued  at  Camden  until  the  following  day  was 
far  advanced.  The  most  valuable  part  of  the  stores  were 
brought  off  and  the  rest  destroyed.  The  mill,  prison,  court- 
house and  other  buildings  were  burnt,  many  private  build- 
ings sharing  the  same  fate.  Camden  was  left  a  heap  of 
ruins.  The  sick  and  wounded  who  were  unable  to  bear  a 
removal  were  of  necessity  abandoned,  and  the  American 
prisoners  left  to  remain  with  others  as  an  exchange.  The 
army  brought  off,  not  only  the  militia  who  had  been  attached 
to  them  at  Camden,  but  the  well  affected  to  the  Royal 
cause,  who  were  afraid  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Amer- 
icans, with  their  families,  negroes,  and  movables  taken 
equally  under  his  lordship's  protection.^  The  loyal  fami- 
lies who  accompanied  his  lordship,  were,  however,  cruelly 
neglected  after  their  arrival  in  Charlestown.  They  built 
themselves  huts  without  the  line  of  fortifications,  in  a 
settlement  called  Rawdon  Town,  which,  because  of  its 
poverty  and  wretchedness,  became  a  term  of  reproach. 
Many  women  and  children  who  had  lived  comfortably  on 
farms  near  Camden  soon  died  of  want  in  their  miserable 
habitations. 2 

Brilliant  successes  to  Sumter  and  Marion  with  their  par- 
tisan bands  and  Lee's  Legion  now  followed  in  rapid  suc- 

1  Annual  Begister,  vol.  XXIV,  85. 

2  Ramsay's  Eevolution,  vol.  II,  232,  233. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  229 

cession.  The  10th,  11th,  12th,  and  15th  of  May  were  dis- 
tinguished by  the  fall  of  the  British  posts  of  Camden, 
Orangeburgh,  Fort  Motte,  and  Granby  in  the  order  of  date. 
The  assertion  of  Greene  that  Sumter  had  promised  to  join 
him  with  one  thousand  men  by  the  8th  of  May,  it  has  been 
seen,  was  a  mistake.  But  his  old  leaders,  Taylor,  Lacey, 
Winn,  Bratton,  Henry  Hampton,  and  Mydelton,  at  once 
responded  to  his  call,  and  were  soon  joined  by  the  two 
other  Hamptons,  Richard  and  Wade  ;  while  McCall,  Purvis, 
Brandon,  and  Hammond  came  out  under  Pickens,  and  were 
soon  reenforced  by  Harden  from  Marion's  corps,  working 
his  way  across  from  the  Pee  Dee  to  Combahee  and  thence 
up  the  Savannah. 

Although  disappointed  greatly  in  the  number  of  men  and 
the  provisions  and  stores  he  expected  to  collect,  Sumter  actu- 
ally commenced  operations  by  the  time  he  proposed.  His 
first  blow  was  aimed  at  a  party  collected  in  force  on  the 
Tyger  River,  but  they  fled  before  him  ;  whereupon,  dividing 
his  force  into  detachments,  he  simultaneously  struck  at 
several  of  the  disaffected  settlements,  whilst  a  party  was 
pushed  down  to  the  main  army  with  the  pittance  of  provi- 
sions he  was  enabled  to  collect,  consisting  only  of  about  ten 
wagon  loads.  The  country  between  the  Broad  and  Saluda 
rivers  and  the  Broad  and  Wateree  was  soon  swept  over ; 
and  on  the  2d  of  May  he  laid  siege  to  Fort  Motte  and  Fort 
Granby  on  the  south  side  of  the  Congaree.  To  assist  in 
the  investment  of  these  places,  Sumter  had  applied  to 
Greene,  wliile  he  lay  at  Twenty-five  Mile  Creek,  for  a  six- 
pounder,  which,  on  the  4th,  Greene  wrote,  promising  to 
send  him.i  The  piece  did  not  arrive,  however,  until  after 
Marion  and  Lee,  finding  that  Watson  had  eluded  them, 
had   appeared   at   Fort   Motte.     This  post  thus  provided 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  94, 
95. 


230  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

against,  deeming  the  reduction  of  Granby  secured,  Sumter 
left  Colonel  Taylor  there,  in  command  of  a  strong  party  to 
keep  up  the  investment  ^  while  he  made  a  dash  at  Orange- 
burgh,  taking  with  him  the  six-pounder  Greene  had  sent 
him ;  the  sound  of  which  he  did  not  doubt  was  to  bring 
that  post  to  terms.  The  effort  was  crowned  with  success ; 
on  the  11th  the  garrison  surrendered,  and  some  supplies, 
with  a  large  stock  of  provisions  and  nearly  one  hundred 
men,  were  the  fruits  of  victory. 

On  the  11th  Sumter  was  in  readiness  to  return  from 
Orangeburgh;  but,  intercepting  one  of  Rawdon's  expresses, 
he  learned  of  his  lordship's  retreat  from  Camden,  before 
Greene's  despatch  of  the  10th,  informing  him  of  it,  could 
reach  him.  Perceiving  immediately  that  there  was  service 
to  be  performed  on  the  line  of  Rawdon's  communication 
between  Camden  and  Charlestown,  which  he  could  very 
soon  reach  from  his  present  position,  he  struck  across  the 
country  towards  Fort  Motte  for  the  purpose  of  uniting 
with  Marion  and  Lee  in  front  of  Lord  Rawdon,  not  doubt- 
ing that,  with  two  field-pieces  and  their  united  forces, 
greatly  to  embarrass  his  lordship  in  the  passage  of  the 
river  at  Nelson's  Ferry.  The  south  bank  of  the  Santee 
was  defended  by  a  small  fort,  which  he  hoped  to  carry 
before  Rawdon  could  approach  the  river. 

On  arriving  at  Fort  Motte,  he  found  the  place  had 
fallen,  that  Marion  had  already  proceeded  upon  the  line 
of  Rawdon's  retreat,  and  Lee  was  advancing  upon  Fort 
Granby.  There  was  still  abundant  time  for  Sumter  to 
have  returned  and  harvested  the  laurels  that  he  had  antici- 
pated from  the  fall  of  that  place,  upon  which  he  had  so 
much  set  his  heart,  and  for  which  his  faithful  lieutenant. 
Colonel  Taylor,  had  prepared  the  way  during  his  absence 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  IT,  121 ;  Life  of  General  Edward  Lacey, 
2i  ;  Mills's  Statistics  of  So.  Ca.,  710  ;  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  251. 


IN  THE  EEVOLtJTION  231 

by  so  harassing  the  garrison  that  they  were  ready  to 
capitulate  upon  the  firing  of  the  first  cannon-shot.  But, 
regarding  the  ultimate  fall  of  Granby  as  secured,  Sumter 
turned  his  immediate  attention  to  another  matter  of  more 
pressing  importance.  The  commanding  officer  of  the 
British  post  at  Nelson's  Ferr}^  had  issued  orders  for 
the  inhabitants  to  drive  down  their  cattle,  and  to  bring 
to  the  line  of  retreat  to  Charlestown  all  the  means  of 
transportation  that  they  could  command.  All  the  country 
was  in  motion  in  pursuance  of  these  orders.  This 
Sumter  determined  to  interrupt.  Anticipating  the  pur- 
poses of  the  British  commander,  for  two  days  he  scoured 
the  country  around,  seizing  upon  the  means  of  transporta- 
tion and  securing  all  the  horses  to  prevent  their  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy. ^ 

In  the  meanwhile,  as  soon  as  Marion  and  Lee  ascertained 
that  Watson  had  eluded  them,  the  disappointed  comman- 
dants moved  upon  Fort  Motte,  and  on  the  8th  of  May 
besieged  it.  Preparatory  to  Lord  Rawdon's  retreat,  orders 
had  been  sent  to  Lieutenant- Colonel  Cruger  to  abandon 
Ninety  Six  and  to  join  Browne  at  Augusta,  and  to  Major 
Maxwell,  commanding  at  Fort  Granby,  to  fall  back  upon 
Orangeburgh.  But  these  orders  had  been  intercepted.  As 
soon  as  Greene  was  informed  of  the  retreat  of  the  enemy, 
persuaded  that  Rawdon's  first  effort  would  be  directed  to 
relieve  Fort  Motte,  he  advanced  towards  the  Congaree, 
determined  to  pass  that  river  if  necessary,  and  to  cover 
the  operations  of  the  besieging  corps. 

This  post  was  the  principal  depot  of  convoys  from 
Charlestown  to  Camden,  and  sometimes  of  those  destined 
for  Fort  Granby  and  Ninety  Six.     The  fort  consisted  of 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  121-122  ;  Mills's  Statistics,  276,  716  ; 
Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix, 
20-21. 


232  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLIKA 

field  works  around  a  large  new  mansion  house  belonging 
to  Mrs.  Rebecca  Motte.  A  deep  trench,  along  the  interior 
margin  of  which  was  raised  a  strong  and  lofty  parapet, 
surrounded  the  dwelling.  To  this  post  had  been  assigned 
an  adequate  garrison  of  about  150  men,  which  was  now 
accidentally  increased  by  a  small  detachment  of  dragoons 
which,  on  its  way  to  Camden  with  despatches  for  Lord 
Rawdon,  had  arrived  from  Charlestown  a  few  hours  before 
the  appearance  of  the  American  troops.  Lieutenant  Mc- 
Pherson,  an  officer  highly  and  deservedly  respected,  com- 
manded the  British  post.  Opposite  to  Fort  Motte,  to  the 
north,  stood  another  hill,  where  Mrs.  Motte,  having  been 
turned  out  of  her  mansion,  resided  in  an  old  farmhouse. 
On  this  height  Colonel  Lee,  with  his  corps,  took  post, 
while  General  Marion  occupied  the  eastern  declivity  of 
the  ridge  on  which  was  the  fort. 

The  fort  was  soon  completely  invested  ;  the  six-pounder 
was  mounted  on  a  battery  erected  in  Marion's  quarter 
for  the  purpose  of  raking  the  northern  face  of  the 
enemy's  parapet,  against  which  Lee  was  preparing  to 
advance.  McPherson  was  unprovided  with  artillery,  and 
depended  for  safety  upon  timely  relief,  not  doubting  its 
arrival  before  the  assailants  could  complete  their  prepara- 
tions. 

The  valley  which  ran  between  the  two  hills  admitted 
safe  approach  within  four  hundred  yards  of  the  fort.  This 
place  was  selected  by  Lee  to  break  ground.  Relays  of 
working  parties  being  provided  for  every  four  hours,  and 
negroes  from  the  neighboring  plantations  brought  by  the 
influence  of  Marion  to  their  assistance,  the  works  advanced 
with  rapidity.  Such  was  their  forwardness  on  the  10th 
that  it  was  determined  to  summon  the  commandant.  A 
flag  was  accordingly  despatched  to  McPherson,  stating  to 
him  with  truth  their  relative  situations,  and  admonishing 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  233 

him  in  the  phrases  of  the  time  to  avoid  the  disagreeable 
consequences  of  an  arrogant  temerity.  To  this  McPherson 
calmly  replied  that,  disregarding  consequences,  he  should 
continue  to  resist  to  the  last  moment.  The  retreat  of 
Rawdon  was  known  in  the  evening  to  the  besiegers,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  night  a  courier  arrived  from  General 
Greene  confirming  the  report,  urging  redoubled  activity, 
and  announcing  his  determination  to  hasten  to  their  sup- 
port. Urged  by  these  strong  considerations,  Marion  and 
Lee  persevered  throughout  the  night  in  pressing  the  com- 
pletion of  their  works.  On  the  next  day  Rawdon  reached 
a  position  opposite  Fort  Motte;  and  in  the  succeeding 
night,  encamping  on  the  highest  ground  in  his  route,  the 
illumination  of  his  fires  announced  his  approach  to  the  de- 
spairing garrison.     But  in  vain. 

The  large  mansion  in  the  centre  of  the  trench  left  but 
a  few  yards  of  the  ground  uncovered;  burning  the  house 
must  therefore  force  a  surrender.  Confident  that  their 
trenches  would  be  within  reach  before  noon  of  the  next  day, 
Marion  and  Lee  determined  to  adopt  the  plan  of  setting 
fire  to  the  buildings  in  the  fort.  This  measure  was  reluc- 
tantly adopted.  The  devoted  house  was  a  large,  pleasant 
edifice,  intended  for  the  summer  residence  of  Rebecca 
Motte,  whose  deceased  husband,  Jacob  Motte,  a  prominent 
citizen,  had  taken  an  active  part  in  the  earlier  Revolu- 
tionary movement,  and  whose  daughter  was  the  wife  of 
Major  Thomas  Pinckney,  then  a  prisoner,  since  Gates's  de- 
feat, in  the  hands  of  the  British.  In  addition  to  these  con- 
siderations Lee  had  made  the  farmhouse  in  which  Mrs. 
Motte  resided  outside  the  works  his  quarters,  at  her  press- 
ing invitation,  and  with  his  officers  had  shared  her  liberal 
hospitality.  Not  only  the  lieutenant  colonel,  but  every 
officer  of  his  corps  off  duty  had  daily  been  entertained  by 
Mrs.  Motte,  while  she  had  also  visited  and  ministered  to  the 


234  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

sick  and  wounded  in  the  American  camp.  Nevertheless  it 
was  determined  that  the  house  must  be  burned.  Taking  the 
first  opportunity  which  offered,  the  next  morning  Colonel 
Lee  informed  Mrs.  Motte  of  the  intended  measure,  lament- 
ing the  necessity,  and  assuring  her  of  the  deep  regret  which 
it  occasioned.  The  smile  with  which  the  communication 
was  received  gave  instant  relief  to  the  embarrassed  officer. 
Mrs.  Motte  not  only  assented,  but  declared  that  she  was 
"  gratified  with  the  opportunity  of  contributing  to  the  good 
of  her  country,  and  should  view  the  approaching  scene 
with  delight."  Shortly  after,  seeing  accidentally  the  bow 
and  arrows  which  had  been  prepared,  she  sent  for  Colonel 
Lee,  and  presenting  him  with  a  quiver  of  arrows  im- 
ported from  India,  which  ignited  on  percussion,  she  re- 
quested his  substitution  of  these  as  probably  better  adapted 
for  the  object  than  those  he  had  provided.  Colonel  Lee 
gladly  accepted  the  offer,  and  everything  was  prepared  for 
the  concluding  scene.  The  lines  were  manned  and  an 
additional  force  stationed  at  the  battery,  lest  the  enemy 
should  determine  to  risk  a  desperate  assault  as  offering  the 
only  chance  of  relief.  As  the  troops  reached  their  several 
points  a  flag  was  again  sent  to  McPherson,  summoning 
him  to  surrender.  Dr.  Irvine  of  the  Legion  was  charged 
with  the  message,  and  instructed  to  communicate  frankly 
the  inevitable  destruction  impending,  and  the  impractica- 
bility of  relief,  as  Lord  Rawdon  had  not  yet  passed  the 
Santee.  But  the  gallant  young  British  officer  in  command 
of  the  post  remained  immovable,  repeating  his  determina- 
tion of  holding  out  to  the  last. 

It  was  now  about  noon,  and  the  scorching  sun  had  pre- 
pared the  shingle  roof  for  an  easy  conflagration.  The 
return  of  Irvine  was  immediately  followed  by  a  flight  of 
the  arrows.  The  first  struck  and  communicated  its  fire ; 
a  second  was  shot  at  another  quarter  of  the  roof;  and  a 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  235 

third  at  still  another  part  of  it.  This  last  also  took  effect, 
and  like  the  first  soon  kindled  a  blaze.  McPherson,  still 
undaunted,  ordered  a  party  to  repair  to  the  loft  of  the 
house,  and  by  knocking  off  the  shingles  to  stop  the  flames. 
This  was  stopped  as  soon  as  perceived,  by  Captain  Finley, 
who  was  directed  to  open  his  battery,  raking  the  loft  from 
end  to  end.  The  fire  of  the  six-pounder  posted  close  to  one 
of  the  gables  soon  drove  the  soldiers  down,  and  no  other 
efforts  to  stop  the  flames  being  practicable,  McPherson 
hung  out  the  white  flag.  To  the  charge  that  he  had  sub- 
jected himself  to  punishment  by  the  idle  waste  of  his 
antagonist's  time  and  neglect  of  opportunities  which  had 
been  presented  to  him  of  saving  liimself  and  garrison  from 
unconditional  submission,  the  British  officer  frankly  ac- 
knowledged his  situation,  and  declared  his  readiness  to 
meet  any  consequence  which  the  discharge  of  his  duty, 
according  to  his  own  conviction  of  right,  might  entail.  His 
gallantry  was  rewarded  and  terms  were  accorded  him. 
His  officers  and  himself  accompanied  their  captors,  and 
partook  with  them  a  sumptuous  dinner,  at  which  Mrs. 
Motte  herself  did  the  honors  with  unaffected  politeness  to 
friend  and  foe  alike,  regardless  of  the  injury  the  necessi- 
ties of  one  and  the  duty  of  the  other  had  caused,  in  the 
attempted  destruction  of  her  mansion. ^  At  the  request 
of  McPherson  his  officers  and  himself  were  paroled  and 
sent  off  that  evening  to  Lord  Rawdon,  then  crossing  the 
Santee  at  Nelson's  Ferry. 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776,  345-348.  The  author  has  followed 
closely  Colonel  Lee's  account  of  this  interesting  and  romantic  incident, 
and  as  Colonel  Lee  was  present  and  a  principal  participator  in  the  events, 
he  must  be  deemed  the  best  authority.  James,  in  his  Life  of  Marion, 
however,  denies  that  the  house  was  fired  by  arrows.  He  states  that  it 
was  fired  by  a  private  in  Marion's  brigade,  who  slung  a  ball  of  rosin  and 
brimstone  on  the  roof  (p.  120).  Mrs.  Ravenel  in  her  Eliza  Lucas,  of 
Scribner's  Women  of  Colonial  and  B evolutionary  Times  (p.  299),  tells  that 


236  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Soon  after  the  capitulation  Greene,  anxious  for  its  suc- 
cess, attended  by  an  escort  of  cavalry,  readied  Fort  Motte 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  precisely  the  situation.  Find- 
ing the  siege  concluded,  he  returned  to  camp,  having 
directed  Marion,  after  placing  the  prisoners  in  security,  to 
proceed  against  Georgetown,  and  ordering  Lee  to  advance 
without  delay  upon  Fort  Granby,  to  which  place  his  army 
would  also  move.  Lee  set  out  immediately  with  his  de- 
tachment, composed  of  horse,  foot,  and  artillery,  and, 
marching  without  intermission,  he  approached  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Fort  Granby  before  dawn  of  the  second  day. 

Fort  Granby  was  erected  on  a  plain  which  extended  to 
the  southern  banks  of  the  Congaree,  near  Friday's  Ferry ,i 
on  what  is  now  the  Lexington  side  of  the  river.  Protected 
on  one  side  by  that  river,  it  was  accessible  on  every  other 
quarter  with  facility.  Colonel  Lee  in  his  Memoirs  states 
that,  being  completely  furnished  with  parapet,  encircled  by 
fosse  and  abatis,  and  being  well  garrisoned,  it  could  not 
have  been  carried  without  considerable  loss  except  by  reg- 
ular approaches,  and  in  this  way  would  have  employed  the 
whole  force  of  Greene  for  a  week  at  least,  in  which  period 
Lord  Rawdon's  interposition  was  practicable ;  that  he  there- 
fore determined  to  press  to  the  conclusion  of  his  operations 
with  all  possible  celerity.  As  soon  as  he  reached  the 
neighborhood,  relying  upon  the  information  of  the  guides, 

the  quiver  of  arrows  had  been  given  many  years  before  to  Mrs.  Motte's 
brother  Miles  Brewton  by  the  captain  of  an  East  Indiaman.  Mrs.  Rave- 
nel  is  a  great-granddaughter  of  Rebecca  Motte.  The  late  Rev.  Charles 
Cotesworth  Pinckney,  D.D.,  a  grandson  of  Mrs.  Motte,  in  his  Life  of  his 
grandfather,  General  Thomas  Pinckney^  states  that  the  arrows  were  fired 
from  rifles,  not  shot  from  bows,  and  in  this  Mrs.  RavenePs  account  agrees. 
Immediately  upon  the  surrender  the  flames  were  extinguished  and  the 
house  saved.  See  also  note  by  A.  S.  Salley,  Jr.,  editor  So.  Ga.  Hist,  and 
Gen.  Mag.,  vol.  II,  149-150. 

1  Sometimes  spelt  Fridig's  Ferry. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  237 

he  began  to  erect  a  battery  in  the  margin  of  the  woods 
to  the  west  of  the  fort.  The  morning  was  uncommonly 
foggy,  which  fortunate  circumstance  gave  time  to  finish 
the  battery  before  it  was  perceived  by  the  enemy.  Cap- 
tain Finley  with  his  six-pounder  mounted  in  battery,  was 
directed,  as  soon  as  the  fog  should  disperse,  to  open  upon 
the  fort,  when  the  infantry,  ready  for  action,  would  ad- 
vance to  gain  the  ground  selected  for  the  commencement 
of  their  approaches.  The  garrison  consisted  of  350  men, 
chiefly  loyal  militia  commanded  by  Major  Maxwell  (a 
Loyalist  from  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland)  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales's  Regiment.  This  officer  is  represented 
as  the  exact  opposite  of  McPherson,  one  disposed  to  avoid 
rather  than  to  court  the  daring  scenes  of  war.  Zealous  to 
fill  his  purse  rather  than  to  gather  military  laurels,  he  had 
during  his  command  pursued  his  favorite  object  with  con- 
siderable success,  and  held  with  him  in  the  fort  his  gathered 
spoils.  Lee  states  that,  solicitous  to  hasten  the  surrender 
of  the  post,  he  determined  to  try  the  effect  of  negotiation 
with  his  pliable  antagonist,  and  prepared  a  summons, 
couched  in  pompous  terms,  calculated  to  operate  upon  such 
an  officer  as  Maxwell  was  represented  to  be.  The  sum- 
mons was  intrusted  to  Captain  Eggleston  of  the  Legion, 
who  was  authorized  to  conclude  finally  upon  the  terms  of 
capitulation  if  he  found  the  enemy  disposed  to  surrender. 
The  fog  disappearing,  Finley 's  gun  announced  the  unex- 
pected proximity  of  Lee's  command,  and  in  the  fort  alarm 
and  confusion  followed.  The  Legion  infantry  advanced 
at  the  same  time,  and  took  possession  of  the  desired  ground 
without  opposition,  cutting  off  the  enemy's  pickets  in  that 
quarter  of  the  fort.  Eggleston,  now  setting  out  with  his 
flag,  caused  a  suspension  of  the  fire,  whereupon  the  enemy's 
pickets  and  patrols,  so  cut  off,  attempted  to  regain  the 
fort.     This  effort  was  partially  checked  by  the  rapid  move- 


238  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ment  of  the  cavalry,  and  an  officer  was  despatched  to  Cap- 
tain Eggleston  requiring  him  to  remonstrate  with  Major 
Maxwell  upon  the  impropriety  of  the  conduct  of  his  pickets 
and  patrols,  and  to  demand  that  he  would  order  them  to 
resume  their  stations.  Eggleston's  remonstrance  was  re- 
spected, and  Maxwell  sent  his  adjutant  with  the  required 
orders.  Negotiations  were  then  begun,  and  Maxwell  was 
himself  inclined  to  accept  the  proposition  submitted  to  him 
by  Captain  Eggleston;  but  after  consulting  with  some  of 
his  officers,  in  turn  he  offered  to  deliver  up  the  fort  upon 
condition  that  private  property  of  every  sort,  without  inves- 
tigation of  title,  should  be  confirmed  to  its  possessors;  that 
the  garrison  should  be  permitted  to  return  to  Charlestown 
prisoners  of  war  until  exchanged;  that  the  militia  should 
be  held  in  the  same  manner  as  the  regulars,  and  that  an 
escort  charged  with  the  protection  of  persons  and  of  prop- 
erty should  attend  the  prisoners  to  the  British  army. 

The  first  condition,  as  it  prevented  the  restoration  of 
plundered  property,  Captain  Eggleston  did  not  think 
proper  to  accept,  but  submitted  by  letter  the  enemy's 
demands  to  Colonel  Lee,  with  one  from  Major  Maxwell  re- 
quiring two  covered  wagons  for  the  conveyance  of  his  own 
baggage  free  from  search.  In  reply  Eggleston  received 
directions  to  accede  to  the  proposed  terms,  with  the 
single  exception  of  all  horses  fit  for  public  service,  and 
to  expedite  the  conclusion  of  the  business.  This  exception 
was  not  approved  by  many  of  Maxwell's  officers,  but  was 
not  resisted  by  him.  Finding  that  the  capitulation  would 
be  thus  concluded,  the  Hessian  officers  in  the  garrison  came 
in  a  body  to  Eggleston,  protesting  against  proceeding  with 
the  negotiation  unless  they  were  permitted  to  retain  their 
horses — a  protest  not  to  be  overruled  by  the  authority  of 
Maxwell.  The  negotiation  was  suspended  and  a  second 
time  Eggleston  found  it  necessary  to  refer  to  Lee.     About 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  239 

this  time,  says  that  officer,  a  dragoon  arrived  with  the 
information  that  Lord  Rawdon  had  crossed  the  Santee, 
and  was  advancing  towards  Fort  Motte.  Had  he  deter- 
mined to  resist  the  requisition  of  the  Hessian  officers,  he 
adds,  this  intelligence  would  have  induced  a  change  in 
his  decision.  He  directed  Captain  Eggleston  to  make 
known  to  the  officers  that  he  took  pleasure  in  gratifying 
them  by  considering  all  horses  belonging  to  individuals 
in  the  fort  as  private  property,  and  claiming  only  such, 
if  any,  as  belonged  to  the  public. 

This  obstacle  being  removed,  the  capitulation  was  signed, 
and  the  principal  bastion  was  immediately  occupied  by 
Captain  Rudulph  with  a  detachment  of  the  Legion  in- 
fantry. Before  noon  Maxwell  with  his  garrison,  con- 
sisting of  340  men  (60  regulars,  the  rest  Loyalists),  the 
baggage  of  every  sort,  two  pieces  of  artillery,  and  two 
covered  wagons,  moved  from  the  fort,  and  the  major 
with  the  garrison  protected  by  the  stipulated  escort  pro- 
ceeded on  their  route  to  Lord  Rawdon.  The  public 
stores,  consisting  chiefly  of  ammunition,  salt,  and  liquors, 
were  secured,  and  presented  a  valuable  supply  to  the 
American  army.  The  moment  Maxwell  surrendered  Lee 
despatched  an  officer  with  the  information  to  General 
Greene,  wlio  was  then  within  a  few  miles  of  Friday's  Ferry, 
just  opposite  the  fort.  The  army  continued  its  march  to 
Ancrum's  plantation  near  the  ferry  and  the  general,  cross- 
ing the  river,  joined  his  light  corps. 

The  tide  of  affairs  had  indeed  turned  in  favor  of  the 
American  cause.  The  posts  of  Camden,  Orangeburgh,  Fort 
Motte,  and  Balfour  had  all  fallen  within  a  few  days.  And 
yet  it  was  in  the  midst  of  these  brilliant  achievements  that 
the  cause  of  liberty  had  nearly  lost  the  services  of  its  two 
principal  supports  in  South  Carolina.  Both  Marion  and 
Sumter  tendered  to  General  Greene  their  resignations  dur- 


240  HISTOKY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ing  these  movements.     In  each  instance  the   conduct   of 
Colonel  Lee  was  the  cause  of  dissatisfaction. 

Greene's  greatest  necessity  and  most  pressing  want 
was  for  horses  upon  which  to  mount  his  dragoons.  As 
Congress  had  practically  abandoned  the  Southern  Depart- 
ment to  its  fate,  he  could  obtain  no  horses  to  supply 
Washington's  and  Lee's  men  from  that  source;  while  the 
hard  service  to  which  the  cavalry  had  been  exposed  in  a 
country  infested  with  Loyalists,  and  in  which  it  was 
necessary  to  forage  at  a  distance,  had  exhausted  those  he 
had.  Thus  it  was  that  at  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  but 
thirty-one  out  of  eighty-seven  dragoons  could  be  mounted 
for  service.  As  all  the  drafts  made  upon  the  States  at 
this  time  were  for  specific  supplies,  Virginia,  the  great  mart 
for  good  horses,  had  been  called  upon  to  supply  a  great 
number ;  and  Greene's  effort  to  obtain  these  animals  had 
caused  the  interference  of  the  legislature  of  that  State, 
that  put  an  end  to  all  hopes  of  a  supply  from  that  quarter. 
From  North  Carolina  he  could  get  none.  And  so  his 
despatches  announcing  his  return  to  the  State  were  accom- 
panied with  calls  upon  Sumter  and  Marion,  not  only  to 
raise  men  to  join  him  without  pay  or  reward,  but  to  find 
horses  for  his  Continental  troops.  Every  letter  which  he 
addressed  to  these  officers  contained  a  demand  to  collect 
horses  by  impressment  or  otherwise.  But  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  service  horses  were  as  essential  to  Sumter 
and  Marion  as  they  were  to  Greene  himself.  Their  fol- 
lowers were  volunteers  with  families,  dependent  upon 
them  for  support,  who  mounted  their  plough  horses  to  ride 
upon  expeditions,  and  when  the  immediate  occasion  was 
over  returned  to  their  fields.  It  was  impossible  to  take 
these  horses — indeed,  to  have  attempted  .to  do  so  would 
have  driven  their  owners  into  the  British  camps.  It  was 
scarcely  less  politic  or  practicable  to  take    the  horses  of 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  241 

those  friends  of  independence  whom  age  or  necessity 
compelled  to  remain  at  home,  for  upon  those  depended 
the  crops,  the  sole  means  of  the  support  alike  of  the 
friendly  inhabitants  of  the  country  and  of  the  army.  The 
only  horses,  therefore,  available  for  general  military  pur- 
poses were  those  which  could  be  taken  from  the  British 
army  or  Loyalists.  But  neither  Sumter  nor  ]\Iarion  were 
disposed  to  be  used  in  this  matter  as  foragers  and  pur- 
veyors for  the  use  of  the  Continental  troops,  who  might 
at  any  time  abandon  the  State  to  their  care,  as  they  had 
twice  done  before  in  the  last  year  —  and  upon  doing  which 
for  a  third  time  Greene  indeed  was  then  actually  deter- 
mined. If  Washington  and  Lee  needed  horses,  let  them 
get  them  from  Congress  or  themselves  take  them  from  the 
enemy.  The  horses  Sumter  and  Marion  captured  they 
needed  to  mount  volunteers  or  men  who  enlisted  in  the 
regiments  they  were  endeavoring  to  raise  for  service  in 
the  State,  upon  which  they  could  rely.  Besides  all  this, 
they  naturally  resented  the  implication  of  haughty  supe- 
riority with  which  they  were  thus  ordered  to  furnish  sup- 
plies for  those  who  had  not  done  more  for  the  service  of 
the  country  than  themselves.  While  these  sentiments  were 
entertained  the  first  open  cause  of  offence  was  given  to 
Marion. 

Colonel  Lee,  in  a  letter  to  General  Greene,  wrote: 
"  General  Marion  can  supply  you,  if  he  will,  with  150 
good  dragoon  horses,  most  of  them  impressed  horses. 
He  might,  in  my  opinion,  spare  60,  which  would  be 
a  happy  supply."  Upon  the  receipt  of  this  letter  Greene 
became  very  excited,  and  wrote  to  Marion  a  communica- 
tion  in  which  he  is  said  to  have  made  no  effort  to  con- 
ceal or  suppress  his  indignation  that  Marion,  knowing 
his  necessities  and  possessing  the  power  to  relieve  them, 
should  have  failed  to  do  so.     In  reply  Marion  repelled  the 

VOL.  IV.  —  R 


242  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

charge,  and  requested  leave  to  resign,  firmly  but  respect- 
fully intimating  his  determination  to  retire  from  the  service 
as  soon  as  he  should  have  seen  Fort  Motte  reduced,  before 
which  he  was  then  lying  with  Lee.  Greene  perceived  the 
mischief  he  had  done,  and  by  earnest  and  flattering  solicita- 
tions, with  difficulty  succeeded  in  overcoming  Marion's 
resolution.  "  My  reasons  for  writing  so  pressingly  respect- 
ing the  dragoon  horses,"  wrote  Greene,  "  was  the  distress 
we  were  in.  It  is  not  my  wish  to  take  the  horses  from 
the  militia  if  it  will  injure  the  public  service ;  the  effects 
and  consequences  you  can  better  judge  than  I  can."^ 

Marion  was  pacified,  turned  the  affair  off  upon  grounds 
that  proved  his  feelings  soothed,  and  his  answer  to  Greene's 
letter  was  accompanied  with  a  fine  horse  for  the  general's 
own  use.  But  from  that  time  he  gave  up  the  siege  to  Lee, 
cooperating  more  to  cover  his  operation  than  to  direct  him. 
In  the  meanwhile,  his  followers,  taking  the  alarm  at  the 
idea  of  being  dismounted,  soon  began  to  scatter,  until  his 
command  was  reduced  to  150.  With  these,  as  soon  as 
Fort  Motte  surrendered,  he  struck  down  towards  Monck's 
Corner,  and  hung  upon  Rawdon's  flanks  during  the  whole 
of  his  retreat  to  that  place. ^ 

Having  thus  offended  and  repelled  Marion,  Lee's  con- 
duct gave  still  greater  offence  to  Sumter.  The  plan  of 
operating  against  the  posts  on  the  west  of  Congaree,  that 
is,  Ninety  Six,  Granby,  Motte,  and  Orangeburgh,  had  been 
Sumter's  scheme,  to  which  he  was  devoted,  and  in  favor  of 
which  he  had,  with  some  difficulty,  obtained  the  Com- 
mander-in-chief's concurrence.  As  early  as  the  2d  of  May, 
wliile  Marion  and  Lee  were  endeavoring  to  intercept 
Watson,  Sumter  had  commenced  operations  against  Fort 

1  Johnson's  X?/e  of  Greene,  vol.  IT,  115,  116;  Gibbes's  Documentary 
Hist.  (1781-82),  68.  " 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  115,  116. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  243 

Granby  and  Fort  Motte.  Regarding  the  fall  of  Granby  a 
mere  matter  of  time,  he  had  left  Colonel  Taylor  to  cut  off 
Maxwell's  supplies  and  to  continue  the  investment  while 
he  struck  below,  at  the  post  at  Orangeburgh.  This  he  had 
successfully  done,  and  had  then  been  led  away  to  secure 
the  supplies  in  the  country  through  which  Rawdon  must 
pass  on  the  retreat  which  he  had  commenced  from  Cam- 
den. While  thus  engaged,  Lee,  having  offended  Marion, 
had  carried  off  the  honor  of  the  reduction  of  Fort  Motte, 
and  Sumter  now  learned  had  proceeded  to  anticipate  him 
in  that  of  Granby.  Sumter's  disposition  was  not  one 
which  would  brook  interference  ;  nor  was  he  without  good 
reason  in  objecting  to  the  regulars  coming  in  at  this  time 
and  taking  from  his  followers  the  advantages  and  glory 
of  a  successful  issue  of  the  efforts  they  had  made  for  the 
recovery  of  these  posts,  while  the  Continentals  had  been 
solicitous  only  of  the  security  of  their  retreat  after  the  loss 
of  Hobkirk's  Hill.  Successes  achieved  by  the  volunteer 
soldiery,  he  thought,  were  far  more  efficacious  in  arousing 
and  sustaining  the  spirit  of  resistance  in  the  people  of  the 
States  than  victories  by  regulars.  The  former  encouraged 
the  wavering  to  side  with  their  fellow-citizens  who  had 
thus  shown  themselves  able  to  cope  with  the  enemy  with- 
out assistance.  The  latter,  while  good  in  themselves, 
added  nothing  to  the  confidence  of  the  inhabitants  in  their 
own  resources.  Sumter  had  set  his  heart  upon  the  capture 
of  this  post  by  his  own  troops  without  Continental  assist- 
ance, not  only  for  the  material  advantages  to  follow  for 
them,  but  far  more  for  the  moral  effect  such  achievement 
would  produce.  Not  at  all  improbably  there  were  mingled 
with  these  just  sentiments  for  the  public  good,  personal 
resentment  that  another  should  step  in  and  deprive  him  of 
the  honor  which  the  plans  he  had  so  conceived  and  so 
steadfastly  maintained  were  just  about  to  bestow  upon 

I 


244  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAKOLINA 

him.  It  Wcas  probably  with  these  mixed  motives  and  senti- 
ments that  on  the  14th  he  wrote  to  Greene:  "I  hope 
it  may  not  be  disagreeable  to  recall  Colonel  Lee,  as  his 
services  cannot  be  v/anted  at  that  place  [Granby]  ;  and  as 
to  his  taking  command,  as  at  the  post  at  3Iotte,  I  cannot 
believe  it  would  be  your  wish.  And  notwithstanding  I 
have  the  greatest  respect  for  Colonel  Lee,  yet  I  could  wish 
he  had  not  gone  to  that  place,  as  it  is  a  circumstance  I 
never  thought  of ;  his  cavalry  can  be  of  no  service  there, 
and  may  be  of  the  greatest  here.  I  have  been  at  great 
pains  to  reduce  that  post  —  I  have  it  in  my  power  to  do 
it  —  and  I  think  it  for  the  good  of  the  public  to  do  it  with- 
out regulars."  1  Having  written  thus  to  the  general  com- 
manding, he  hurried  on  to  Granby,  to  learn,  before  he 
reached  the  post,  that  Lee  had  accepted  the  capitulation. 

The  fact  that  Lee  had  thus  snatched  from  Sumter's  men 
and  himself  the  honor  of  the  recovery  of  the  post  was  pro- 
voking enough  to  a  man  of  his  temperament ;  but  his  in- 
dignation knew  no  bounds  when  he  learned  the  terms 
which  had  been  given  to  Maxwell.  The  fort  had  been 
the  depot  of  all  the  plunder  that  Maxwell  and  his  party 
had  been  rioting  in  for  months  past,  and  the  place  of 
refuge  of  the  most  obnoxious  Loyalists.  It  had  now  been 
invested  for  some  time  by  Colonel  Taylor's  command,  the 
very  men  who  had  suffered  under  the  rapine  of  its  garri- 
son, and  they  had  been  solacing  themselves  with  the  hope 
of  restitution,  indemnity,  and  revenge.  In  all  these  they 
were  disappointed,  and  compelled  to  look  on  and  see  cov- 
ered wagons,  drawn  by  their  own  horses,  crammed  with 
plunder  from  their  farms,  and  their  own  slaves,  all  carried 
away  before  their  eyes  by  Hessians  and  Tories,  under  the 
escort  of  Lee's  Legion.  Feeling  ran  high  at  the  sight, 
it  may  well  be  imagined;  but  when,  the  next  morning, 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  122. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  245 

Colonel  Lee's  own  men  paraded,  equipped  in  new  clothing, 
while  the  patriot  soldiers  were  left  to  prosecute  the  war 
in  rags,  then  even  Colonel  Lee's  motives  were  drawn  into 
question,  and  a  bitterness  engendered  which  was  never 
allayed. 

Sumter  had  surely  no  right  to  expect  that  the  taking  of 
the  post  would  be  delayed  by  Greene  to  suit  his  conven- 
ience or  to  gratify  his  ambition;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
had  cause  for  just  indignation  if  the  capitulation  had  been 
hurried  merely  to  deprive  him  of  its  honor,  especially  if, 
in  order  to  hasten  it  for  this  purpose,  improper  terms  had 
been  granted  to  the  enemy.  That  Maxwell  obtained  every 
advantage  in  the  negotiation  for  surrender  is  clear.  The 
conditions  allowed  were  such  that,  though  Captain  Eggle- 
ston  was  intrusted  with  the  fullest  powers  to  conclude 
finally  upon  the  terms  if  he  found  the  enemy  disposed  to 
surrender,  he  declined  to  act  upon  his  authority,  and  re- 
quired the  sanction  of  Lee  himself  to  them.  The  first,  as 
Lee  himself  declares,  was  diametrically  repugnant  to  the 
course  contemplated  by  him,  as  it  prevented  the  restoration 
of  plundered  property.  And  yet  Lee  allowed  them,  and 
permitted  Maxwell  to  march  off  under  escort,  carrying  off 
the  property  of  men  who  stood  by  with  arms  in  their 
hands.  The  hasty  granting  of  such  terms  certainly  de- 
mands some  explanation,  and  this  Lee  has  attempted  to 
give ;  the  fact  of  the  receipt  of  information  of  Lord  Raw- 
don's  advance,  he  declares,  would  have  determined  him 
had  he  not  already  decided  upon  his  action.  But  the  facts 
of  the  situation  will  scarcely  justify  his  precipitancy. 

Maxwell's  garrison  did  not  actually  number  350  men, 

but   60  of   whom  were    regulars,  the    rest   loyal  militia. 

Lee's  own  corps  numbered  about  300  ^  when  he  returned 

to    South    Carolina,    and    they    had   since    lost    but  few 

1  See  authorities  cited,  ante. 


246  HISTORY   OP   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

men  in  action.  If  we  exclude  for  the  present  Colonel 
Taylor's  regiment,  whose  presence  Lee  does  not  mention, 
but  which  was  doubtless  at  hand,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Greene's  army  was  just  across  the  Congaree  River  at 
Friday's  Ferry,  while  at  this  time,  the  14th  of  May,  Lord 
Rawdon  was  but  crossing  the  Santee  at  Nelson's  Ferry, 
more  than  sixty  miles  distant,  with  Marion  upon  his  flanks, 
and  Sumter  between  Lee  and  himself.  It  turned  out  that 
Rawdon  was  not  coming  that  way  at  all,  that  in  fact  he 
was  retreating  in  the  opposite  direction,  to  Monck's  Corner. 
But  Lee  did  not  know  that;  his  information  by  Captain 
Armstrong  was  that  Rawdon  was  advancing  towards  Fort 
Motte,  which  was  on  the  way  to  Granby.  Still,  even  had 
that  been  so,  Rawdon  could  scarcely  have  reached  Granby 
before  two  days  were  Sumter  and  Marion  not  in  his 
way.  There  was,  therefore,  no  cause  for  any  precipitancy; 
and  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  Lee's  ambition  to 
add  another  to  his  list  of  captures  had  induced  him  to 
grant  terms  to  Maxwell  which  should  never  have  been 
allowed. 

Sumter,  in  his  anger  at  Lee's  conduct,  tendered  his  resig- 
nation, and  sent  on  his  commission  to  General  Greene.  It 
has  been  asserted  that  Greene  compelled  Lee  to  apologize 
to  Sumter.i  This  is  probably  an  exaggeration  of  what  did 
take  place. 

Whether  through  apology  or  explanation,  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  Lee  exerted  himself  to  reconcile  Sumter,  who 
was  pacified,  if  not  convinced  and  satisfied.  On  the  17th 
of  May  General  Greene  wrote  to  Sumter :  — 

"  I  take  the  liberty  to  return  you  your  commission  which  you  for- 
warded me  yesterday  for  my  acceptance  &  to  inform  you  that  I  can- 
not think  of  accepting  it  &  to  beg  you  to  continue  your  command. 

"I  am  sorry  for  your  ill  health  and  shall  do  everything  in  my 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  123. 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  247 

power  to  render  your  command  as  convenient  as  the  nature  of  your 
service  will  admit. 

"  It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  tell  you  how  important  your  services 
are  to  the  interest  and  happiness  of  this  country  and  the  confidence 
I  have  in  your  abilities  and  zeal  for  the  good  of  the  service.  Your 
continuing  in  command  will  lay  the  public  in  general,  and  me  in  par- 
ticular, under  very  great  obligations  &  tho'  it  may  be  accompanied 
with  many  personal  inconveniences  yet  I  hope  you  will  have  cause 
to  rejoice  in  the  conclusion  of  the  business  from  the  consideration 
of  having  contributed  so  largely  to  the  recovery  of  its  liberty." 

Well,  perhaps,  it  might  have  been  had  General  Greene 
accustomed  himself  usually  to  write  in  this  strain  in  regard 
to  Sumter  to  others  as  well  as  to  Sumter  himself,  espe- 
cially to  Colonel  Lee.  But,  as  it  has  appeared,  the  gen- 
eral wrote  to  others  in  very  different  terms  of  this  officer, 
repeatedly  and  querulously  referring,  as  the  author  of  the 
Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas  observes,  to  the  failure  of  Sum- 
ter to  join  him  with  one  thousand  men  as  the  cause  of 
his  defeat  at  Hobkirk's  Hill.^  General  Greene  was  indeed 
unhappy  in  his  correspondence  during  the  campaign. 
Johnson,  commenting  upon  the  fact  that,  from  April  14th 
until  the  siege  of  Fort  Motte,  Lee  acted  under  the  com- 
mand of  Marion,  observes  that  Greene's  official  corre- 
spondence was  exclusively  with  Marion  "  as  commander  of 
the  party."  "Colonel  Lee,"  he  says,  "often  writes  also  to 
General  Greene,  but  if  answers  were  returned  they  must 
be  considered  as  private,  since  no  copies  of  such  answers 
are  to  be  found  among  the  official  papers."  Unfortunately, 
though  no  official  copies  may  have  been  kept,  Greene 
not  only  received,  but  invited,  communications  from  Lee, 
while  under  Marion's  command  by  his  orders,  and  appears 
regularly  to  have  replied  to  them.'^    No  more  uncomforta- 

1  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  363. 

2  See  Greene's  letter  to  Lee,  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas^  Appendix, 
X,  xii,  xiii;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  61,  61,  63. 


248  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ble  relation  could  possibly  have  been  created,  nor  one  more 
certain  to  lead  to  niisundertanding,  if  not  to  rupture. 
And  so  the  result  proved.  Writing  to  Lee,  Greene  criti- 
cises and  expresses  doubts  of  Sumter's  good  faith,  and  in 
reply  Lee  complains  against  Marion  who,  he  charges,  is 
withholding  supplies  due  the  Commander-in-chief.  Such 
a  correspondence  was  in  violation  of  the  most  essential 
principles  of  military  rule,  and  should  never  have  been 
allowed.  Once  Lee  was  put  under  Marion's  command,  no 
communication  should  have  passed  between  the  Commander- 
in-chief  and  Lee  except  through  Marion  himself. 


CHAPTER  XI 

1781 

Lord  Rawdon,  on  his  retreat  from  Camden,  was  met 
at  Nelson's  Ferry  by  Colonel  Balfour,  the  commandant  of 
Charlestown,  who  came  to  represent  to  him,  and  to  con- 
sult upon,  the  affairs  of  the  city,  as  well  as  of  the  province 
in  general.  He  stated  that  the  revolt  was  now  universal, 
and  so  little  had  this  serious  and  alarming  turn  of  affairs 
been  apprehended  that  the  old  works  of  the  town  had 
been  levelled  to  make  way  for  new,  which  had  not  yet 
been  constructed ;  ^  that  he  had  the  fullest  conviction  of 
the  disaffection  in  general  of  the  inhabitants;  and  that 
under  these  circumstances  his  garrison  was  inadequate 
to  its  defence  against  any  force  of  consequence  that 
might  attempt  the  city.  The  royal  militia  in  the  city 
were  in  such  a  state  of  mutiny  that  a  part  of  them  had 
to  be  disarmed;  they  were  ready,  it  was  said,  to  seize 
the  gates  of  the  town  if  Greene  would  present  himself 
suddenly  before  them.^  The  conclusions  drawn  from 
this  untoward  state  of  affairs  were  that,  if  misfortune 
happened  to  the  corps  under  Lord  Rawdon,  the  probable 

1  The  old  works  had  been  levelled  by  order  of  Lord  Cornwallis  in  January, 
1781,  before  he  moved  into  North  Carolina.  New  ones  designed  had  not 
been  erected.  This  was  one  of  the  strongest  points  made  by  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  against  his  lordship  in  their  bitter  controversy.  {Clinton- Corn- 
loallia  Controversy^  vol.  I,  484.) 

2  Letter  from  Marquis  of  Hastings,  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee), 
Appendix,  613 ;  Clinton-Cornwallis  Controversy^  vol.  I,  484. 

249 


250  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAEOLINA 

consequence  would  be  the  total  loss  of  the  province,  in- 
cluding the  capital ;  but  that,  although  the  highest  degree 
of  prudence  and  caution  were  upon  that  account  indis- 
pensably necessary,  jet,  as  he  was  just  joined  by  Major 
McArthur  with  about  three  hundred  foot  and  eighty 
dragoons.  Lord  Rawdon  conceived  he  might,  without 
hazarding  too  much,  endeavor  to  check  the  operations  of 
the  enemy  on  the  Congaree.^ 

And  now  was  manifested  the  excellent  work  that  Sum- 
ter had  done  while  Lee  was  snatching  from  him  the  laurels 
at  Fort  Motte  and  Granby.  So  completely  had  he  cleared 
the  country  that,  it  is  stated,  for  five  days  after  Lord 
Rawdon  had  passed  the  Santee  not  a  single  person  of 
any  sort  whatever,  whether  with  intelligence  or  on  any 
other  account,  came  near  the  army,  although  he  had  ad- 
vanced directly  from  Nelson's  Ferry  that  night  and  the 
following  day  to  a  point  where  the  roads  from  Nelson's 
and  McCord's  ferries  met.  Nor  could  the  scouts  and 
spies  which  he  detached  on  all  hands  procure  him  any 
reliable  intelligence  as  to  the  situation  of  the  enemy  or 
the  state  of  the  country.  A  number  of  reports,  however, 
which  were  contradictory  in  other  respects,  seemed  to 
concur  in  one  point,  which  was  that  Greene  had  passed 
the  Congaree  and  was  pushing  down  the  Orangeburgh 
road  with  a  strong  force.  This  report  was  of  too  great 
moment  to  be  slighted,  and  not  only  obliged  the  British 
commander  to  relinquish  his  design  of  advancing  to  the 
Congaree,  but  caused  him  to  fall  back  to  the  Eutaws 
and  thence  to  Monck's  Corner,  for  the  protection  of  Charles- 
town  and  of  the  rich  intervening  country.  So  meagre 
was  his  intelligence  and  so  difficult  to  be  obtained,  that 
it  was  not  until  after  his  arrival  at  Monck's  Corner  that 

^Annual  JRegister,  1781,  vol.  XXIV,  85  j  CUnton-CornwaUis  Contro- 
versy, Vol.  I,  484,  485. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  251 

Lord  Rawdon  discovered  it  was  not  General  Greene, 
but  Sumter  only,  who  had  taken  possession  of  Orange- 
burgh.^ 

Sumter's  genius  at  once  took  in  the  situation.  He  per- 
ceived that  now  had  occurred  the  opportunity  for  strik- 
ing a  blow  with  Greene's  united  forces.  The  audacity  of 
his  own  attack  upon  Granby  and  Orangeburgh,  of  Mar- 
ion's upon  McLeroth,  Doyle,  and  Watson,  and  Harden's 
brilliant  strokes  in  the  Low-Country  during  the  absence 
of  Greene  in  North  Carolina,  and  the  fall  of  all  the 
British  posts  on  the  Congaree  since  his  return,  had  turned 
the  popular  tide  in  favor  of  the  American  cause,  had 
strengthened  the  weak  and  determined  the  wavering, 
and,  as  he  conceived,  had  prepared  the  way  for  decisive 
action.  Delighting  in  vigorous  enterprise,  says  Johnson, 
and  appreciating  the  effect  of  these  successes  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  enemy  as  well  as  upon  that  of  the  people 
of  the  country,  Sumter  strenuously  urged  upon  Greene 
that,  united  with  Lee,  Marion,  and  himself,  he  should  now 
fall  upon  Rawdon.  The  British  force  outside  of  Charles- 
town,  he  believed,  could  now  be  destroyed  and  the  cam- 
paign ended. 2  The  respective  numbers  of  the  two  armies 
now  warranted  the  attempt.  Greene  had  present  at  the 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  939  men.  He  had  lost  in  that 
engagement  268  men,  leaving  him  671 ;  Major  Eaton  had 
soon  after  joined  him  with  220  North  Carolina  levies ; 
Lee's  Legion  numbered  300.  Putting  Marion's  men  at 
but  150,  to  which  number  they  were  said  to  have  been 
reduced  by  the  apprehension  that  their  horses  were  to  be 
taken  from  them,  and  Sumter's  at  500,  Greene  at  this 
time  must  have  had  between   1800  and  1900  men.     On 

^Annual  Begister,  1781,  vol.  XXIV,  86-87  ;  Clinton- Coriiwallis  Contro- 
versy, vol.  I,  480,  486. 
2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  124. 


252  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

the  other  hand,  Lord  Rawdon,  at  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  had  but  900  men,  of  whom  258  had  been  lost,  and 
his  only  reenforcement  since  had  been  Watson's  corps, 
which  the  Americans  estimated  at  600,  but  the  British 
at  500,1  an^  McArthur's,  which  joined  him  when  he 
crossed  Nelson's  Ferry,  of  380.2  His  lordship  had  there- 
fore probably  not  more  than  1600  or  1700  men  present 
with  him  at  the  Eutaws  in  May.  When  the  decisive  ac- 
tion did  take  place,  four  months  afterwards,  these  propor- 
tions were  changed,  and  General  Greene  was  compelled  then 
to  meet  a  force  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  his  own  in  numbers, 
and  from  which  the  effects  of  the  disasters  in  the  spring 
had  been  in  a  measure  at  least  removed.  But  he  who  had 
been  so  anxious  for  united  action  at  Camden,  and  so  con- 
fident there  of  capturing  the  whole  British  army,  now 
hesitated  and  shrank  from  the  risk  of  an  attack  when  it 
promised  such  great  results. 

In  defence  of  Greene's  course  at  this  time  it  was  said  that 
Lord  Rawdon  had  gained  at  least  a  day's  march,  and,  com- 
manding all  the  means  of  transportation  the  country 
afforded,  could  sweep  along  with  him  or  destroy  all  the 
provisions ;  and  having  gained  the  banks  of  the  Santee,  a  few 
field-pieces  could  have  stopped  the  advance  of  a  very 
superior  army  through  the  passes  of  the  river  swamp 
should  Greene  have  pursued  him  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
Wateree.  And  what,  it  was  asked,  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  descent  on  the  west  side?  The  route  was  so 
circuitous  that  the  British  army  could  have  thrown  itself 
on  the  American  front;  nay,  reenforcements  might  have 
advanced  from  Charlestown  to  Nelson's  Ferry  in  the 
time  the  American  army  could  have  reached  the  latter 
point.     What,  then,  would  have  been  Greene's  situation? 

1  Stedman's  American   War,  vol.  II,  360. 
^Annual  Begister,  1781,  vol.  XXIV,  84. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  253 

The  reenforcements  from  Ireland  might  have  arrived 
and  joined  their  forces  to  Lord  Rawdon's,  and  Greene 
must  have  risked  everything  on  a  battle  with  a  superior 
enemy,  etc.^ 

No  battle  would  ever  be  fought  if  the  attacking  party 
should  run  no  risk.  But  these  objections  are  easily  an- 
swered. If  Rawdon  had  started  with  at  least  a  day's 
march  before  Greene  could  move,  he  had  showed  no  dis- 
position to  take  advantage  of  his  start  and  was  proceeding 
very  leisurely.  He  began  his  movement  on  the  night  of 
the  9th  of  May,  but  did  not  begin  to  pass  the  river  until 
the  night  of  the  13th,  nor  was  he  safely  across  until  the 
evening  of  the  14th,  when  he  met  Balfour  with  his  alarm- 
ing report  of  the  condition  of  the  country,  and  learned 
that  Fort  Motte  had  fallen,  and  that  Maxwell  was  besieged 
at  Granby.  Hoping  to  relieve  Maxwell,  he  moved  a  day's 
march  up  the  river,  on  the  15th,  but,  learning  of  the  sur- 
render of  that  officer,  he  retraced  his  steps.^  During  the 
four  days  of  Rawdon's  leisurely  retreat  from  Camden,  Sum- 
ter had  made  his  masterly  raid  through  the  country  down 
to  Dorchester,  sweeping  away  horses  and  everything  in  the 
way  of  transportation  that  could  assist  the  British  in  their 
retreat.  In  the  meanwhile  Greene,  who,  Lee  says,  had 
pressed  on  with  much  expedition,  was  on  the  15th  within  a 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  427,  428.  It  is  said  that  the  subject 
was  fully  discussed  by  Williams,  Lee,  and  Carrington  before  the  public  in 
1792,  and  that  it  was  fully  proved  that  the  movement  in  the  pursuit  of  Raw- 
don would  not  only  have  been  visionary  and  hazardous,  but  impossible. 
No  doubt  it  was  so  to  Lee's  satisfaction,  for  he  claimed  the  credit  of  hav- 
ing advised  Greene,  instead,  to  move  against  Ninety  Six  {Campaigns  in  the 
Carolinas,  382).  But  Sumter  was  by  no  means  convinced,  and  stoutly 
maintained  the  soundness  of  his  advice  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  Congress,  when  the  subject  was  broached  there,  upon 
the  occasion  of  relief  sought  for  by  General  Greene's  widow. 

2  Rawdon  to  Cornwallis,  Clinton- Gornwallis  Controversy^  vol.  I,  482, 
483. 


254  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

few  miles  of  Friday's  Ferry  or  Granby.  So  far,  therefore, 
from  there  being  any  difficulty  in  Greene's  overtaking 
Lord  Rawdon,  the  two  armies  were  within  striking  distance 
on  that  day;  Rawdon,  believing  that  Greene  had  already 
crossed  the  river  and  was  at  Orangeburgh,  was  not  yet  dis- 
posed to  abandon  the  line  of  the  Congaree,  and  could 
easily  have  been  brought  to  battle  had  Greene  so  desired. 
Nor  will  it  do  to  say  that  the  reenforcements  from  Ireland, 
that  did  arrive  soon  after,  might  have  arrived  and  joined 
Rawdon ;  for  while  it  was  true  Rawdon  was  hoping  for 
the  arrival  of  some  force  that  might  put  Charlestown  out 
of  danger,^  and  that  Greene  himself  had  received  informa- 
tion that  British  reenforcements  might  be  expected  in 
Charlestown,  it  behooved  Greene  all  the  more  to  strike 
before  Rawdon  received  such  assistance.  The  reenforce- 
ments did  not,  in  fact,  arrive  until  the  3d  of  June,  near  three 
weeks  after,  and  it  was  in  this  time  that  Sumter  urged 
that  the  battle  should  be  given.  But  a  still  more  conclusive 
answer  to  the  objections  against  Sumter's  advice  on  this 
occasion  is  that  four  months  after,  when  the  British  had 
been  reenforced  by  three  fresh  regiments  from  Ireland,  had 
defeated  Greene  at  Ninety  Six  and  released  Cruger,  and 
had  to  some  extent  at  least  recovered  from  the  demoraliza- 
tion which  Balfour  had  reported  to  Rawdon  on  his  arrival 
at  Nelson's  Ferry,  Greene  was  at  last  compelled  to  fight 
the  battle  which  might  have  been  fought  with  so  much 
more  chance  of  victory  at  this  time.     Sumter  was  over- 

1  Lord  Rawdon  writes  to  Cornwallis  from  Monck's  Corner  on  the  24th  of 
May  :  "I  am  using  every  effort  to  augment  our  cavalry  in  hopes  that  the 
arrival  of  some  force  which  may  put  Charlestown  out  of  danger  will 
speedily  enable  us  to  adopt  a  more  active  conduct.  But  the  plundering 
parties  of  the  enemy  have  so  stripped  the  country  of  horses  and  there  is 
such  difficulty  in  getting  swords  and  other  appointments  that  I  get  on  but 
slowly  in  this  undertaking."  —  Clinton- Cornwallis  Controversy^  vol.  I, 
486. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  265 

ruled.  "  Greene  never  ventured  on  a  hazardous  game 
when  he  could  play  a  safe  one,"  says  his  biographer.^  The 
posts  in  the  interior  country,  he  now  thought,  presented 
the  most  desirable  object.  There  appeared  to  be  no  doubt 
of  their  falling,  and  with  them  might  be  acquired  supplies, 
provisions,  and  the  country  they  commanded.  This  was 
certainly  a  very  different  view  from  that  expressed  to 
Sumter  on  his  assuming  command  of  the  department, 
when  Greene  wrote  to  that  officer  that  the  salvation  of  the 
country  did  not  depend  upon  little  strokes  —  that  it  was 
not  a  war  of  outposts.  It  would  have  been  well  if  he  had 
now  recalled  and  acted  upon  the  advice  he  had  then  given. 
"If  we  can  introduce  into  the  field  a  greater  army  than 
the  enemy,  all  their  posts  will  fall  themselves;  and  with- 
out this  they  will  reestablish  them  though  we  should  take 
them  twenty  times."  A  greater  army  than  that  of  the 
enemy  had  not  been  introduced ;  but  by  the  repetition  of 
little  strokes  the  partisan  bands  had  reduced  the  enemy  to 
inferiority,  and  the  remaining  outposts  were  about  to  be 
abandoned  by  him,  when  to  their  surprise  Greene,  instead 
of  advancing  upon  Rawdon,  turned  aside  to  besiege  Ninety 
Six  and  Augusta.  With  the  fall  of  the  posts  on  the  Con- 
garee  the  fall  of  Ninety  Six  was  assured,  for,  as  Greene 
himself  had  written  to  his  friend  Governor  Read,  on  the 
4th  of  May,  all  the  fertile  parts  of  the  State  around  Camden, 
Ninety  Six,  and  Augusta  had  been  laid  waste  in  such  a 
manner  that  an  army  could  not  subsist  in  the  neighborhood 
of  any  of  these  posts. ^  Cut  off,  therefore,  from  its  supplies 
from  Charlestown,  Ninety  Six  must  have  been  evacuated.^ 
And  this  indeed  had  been  determined  upon  by  Lord  Raw- 
don, w^ho  considered  the  risk  too  great  to  be  hazarded  for 
the  purpose  of  protecting  the  place  or  even  of  extricating 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  124. 
^  Ibid.,  hi.  ^  Ibid.,  67. 


256  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  troops;  nor  would  he  venture  to  its  relief  without 
other  means  of  subsisting  his  army  on  the  march  than  the 
gleanings  of  a  wasted  and  hostile  country.  Thus  circum- 
stanced, Lord  Rawdon  despatched  several  messengers  by 
different  routes,  and,  to  guard  as  much  as  possible  against 
mischance,  applied  to  Colonel  Balfour  to  send  others  from 
Charlestown,  with  instructions  to  Colonel  Cruger,  who 
commanded  at  Ninety  Six,  to  abandon  that  place  and  to  re- 
move with  the  garrison  as  speedily  as  possible  to  Augusta.^ 
It  was  not  among  the  least  vexatious  freaks  of  fortune, 
says  Johnson,  that  Greene  owed  all  the  mortifications  he 
experienced  before  Ninety  Six  to  the  successful  activity  of 
the  Whig  militia.  Had  they  been  less  diligent,  he  would 
have  been  saved  the  necessity  of  this  expedition,  and  would 
have  found  himself,  without  a  struggle,  in  command  of  the 
whole  upper  country.  Nor  is  it  probable,  observes  that 
author,  that  Cruger,  after  uniting  with  Browne  at  Augusta, 
could  have  made  good  his  retreat  to  Savannah,'^  for  General 
Pickens,  with  about  four  hundred  of  Anderson's  regiment, 
was  lying  between  Augusta  and  Ninety  Six  to  prevent  his 
junction  with  Browne;^  and  Harden,  with  his  party,  was  in 
the  neighborhood.  But  why  put  the  blame  of  the  failure 
before  Ninety  Six,  and  the  loss  of  all  that  had  been  gained 
by  the  partisan  bands  during  the  year,  upon  their  excessive 
zeal  in  the  simple  performance  of  their  duty,  rather  than 
upon  the  true  source  of  Greene's  misfortune,  his  rejection 
of  Sumter's  advice  to  advance  upon  Rawdon,  rather  than 
turn  aside  towards  Ninety  Six  ?  It  is  nevertheless  a  curi- 
ous fact  that  the  evacuation  of  Ninety  Six,  and  the  conse- 
quent abandonment  of  the  whole  upper  country  by  the 

1  Annual  Begister,  1781,  vol.  XXIV,  87  ;  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  484  ; 
Clinton-Cornwallis  Controversy,  vol.  I,  485. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Oreene,  vol.  II,  140. 
sMcCall's  J/iko/(?a. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  257 

British,  was  only  prevented  by  the  interception  of  Raw- 
don's  messages  on  land;  and  the  surrender  of  the  place  was 
only  prevented,  as  we  shall  see,  by  the  interception  of  Sir 
Henry  Clinton's  despatches  on  the  sea. 

There  is,  however,  another  view  to  be  taken  of  Greene's 
conduct  in  turning  back  to  Ninety  Six  instead  of  pressing 
on  towards  the  recovery  of  Charlestown.  He  was  still 
hankering  after  the  field  in  Virginia,  to  which  he  had 
learned  that  Cornwallis  had  gone.  He  was  still  asking 
himself :  "  If  the  principal  officer  in  the  enemy's  interest 
is  there  (i.e.  in  Virginia),  who  should  be  opposed  to  him  ? 
Surely  the  commander  of  the  Southern  Department !  "  ^ 
The  fact  is  that  Greene  was  not  contemplating  the  further 
prosecution  of  the  war  in  South  Carolina.  He  yearned  to 
go  to  Virginia,  where  he  thought  more  honor  was  to  be 
won.  He  was  again  about  to  leave  the  protection  of  what 
had  been  regained  to  the  partisan  bands  which  had  secured 
it,  and  with  his  Continentals  to  abandon  the  State.  The 
day  after  he  reached  Ninety  Six  he  wrote  to  Lafayette, 
"  If  we  are  successful  here  /  shall  move  northwardly  imme- 
diately with  a  part  of  our  force  if  not  alV^  That  is,  if 
Ninety  Six  fell,  he  would  leave  Sumter,  Marion, and  Pickens 
to  contend  with  Rawdon. 

We  must  now  turn  our  attention  to  another  part  of  the 
field.  Major  Harden,  who,  it  will  be  recollected,  had 
crossed  the  country  and  successfully  carried  back  the  war 
into  the  Low-Country,  after  the  capture  of  Fort  Balfour, 
when  last  mentioned  was  endeavoring  to  form  a  junction 
with  General  Pickens.  He  had  not  since  been  idle,  and  it 
is  time  now  to  look  after  his  movements  in  connection  with 
the  Georgians  who  had  survived  the  struggle  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Savannah.     After  the  affair  at  Beattie's  Mill, 

1  Letter  to  Colonel  Lee,  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas,  356. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  141. 

VOL.   IV.  —  3 


258  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

upon  the  return  of  Pickens,  Clarke,  and  McCall  from 
North  Carolina,  Clarke  proceeded  into  Georgia  with  his 
troops,  accompanied  by  McCall  with  a  part  of  his  regi- 
ment from  South  Carolina.  About  the  12th  of  April 
both  these  officers  were  seized  with  the  small-pox.  Clarke 
took  a  retired  situation  with  a  suitable  guard  until  he 
recovered,  during  which  time  the  command  of  the  troops 
in  Georgia  was  confided  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Micajah 
Williamson.  McCall  returned  to  Carolina,  and  unfor- 
tunately for  his  people  and  their  cause,  died  from  the 
disease. 

When  the  Georgians  returned  to  their  country,  they 
dispersed  into  parties  of  ten  or  twelve  men  each,  so  as  to 
spread  themselves  over  the  settlements,  appointing  a  place 
of  rendezvous.  When  these  small  parties  entered  the 
settlements  where  they  had  formerly  resided,  says  the 
historian  of  Georgia,  general  devastation  was  presented  to 
their  view ;  their  aged  fathers  and  youthful  brothers  had 
been  hanged  and  murdered,  their  decrepit  grandfathers 
were  incarcerated  in  prisons,  where  most  of  them  had  been 
suffered  to  perish  in  filth,  famine,  or  disease;  and  their 
mothers,  wives,  sisters,  daughters,  and  young  children  had 
been  robbed,  insulted,  and  abused,  and  were  found  by  them 
in  temporary  huts  more  resembling  a  savage  camp  than  a 
civilized  habitation.  There  is  damning  proof  of  the  truth 
of  this  unvarnished  tale,  says  this  author,  and  the  reader 
may  imagine  the  feelings  of  the  Georgian  of  that  day  and 
the  measure  of  his  resentment.  Mercy  to  a  Loyalist  who 
had  been  active  in  outrage  became  inadmissible,  and  retalia- 
tion and  carnage  ensued.^  The  Whig  captains,  Johnson 
and  McKoy,  with  a  few  active  followers,  had  taken  a 
position  in  the  swamps  of  the  Savannah  River,  and  were 
employed  in  watching  the  communications  between  Augusta 
1  McCall's  Hist.  ofGa.,  vol.  II,  362. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  259 

and  Savannah.  They  had  frequently  intercepted  boats 
laden  with  provisions  and  other  stores,  which  they  secured 
or  destroyed.  To  put  a  stop  to  this,  Colonel  Browne,  who 
commanded  the  British  garrison  at  Augusta,  detached 
Lieutenant  Kemp  of  the  King's  Rangers  with  ten  soldiers 
and  twenty  militia  to  dislodge  them.  McKoy,  hearing  of 
the  advance  of  the  party,  took  an  advantageous  position 
near  Mathews's  Bluff  and  attacked  tliem,  though  much 
superior  in  number  to  his  own,  killed  the  officer  in  com- 
mand and  fifteen  of  his  men,  and  compelled  the  remainder 
to  retreat  precipitately  to  Augusta. 

Hearing  of  Colonel  Harden's  party  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Coosa whatchie.  Colonel  Browne  ordered  his  royal  militia 
to  repair  to  Augusta  to  defend  it ;  but  they,  covered  with 
crimes,  had  no  inclination  to  be  cooped  up  in  a  garrison, 
lest  they  might  be  taken  and  receive  the  punishment  due 
to  them  for  their  criminal  offences.  Many  of  them  fled  to 
the  Indians  and  joined  them  in  warfare  against  the  frontier 
settlements. 

Having  called  his  troops,  Browne  determined  to  strike  at 
Harden.  He  marched  with  the  greater  part  of  his  own 
force  and  a  number  of  Indians  to  drive  him  from  the 
neighborhood.^  Guided  by  one  Wylley,  he  encamped  in 
a  field  at  Wiggins's  Hill  for  the  night.^  Harden,  joined 
by  Johnston  and  McKoy,  had  advanced  within  a  mile  of 
the  place  where  Browne  was  encamped,  unaware  of  his 
approach.  The  two  parties  were  then  in  striking  distance, 
each  ignorant  of  the  other's  position.  Harden,  first  learning 

1  Colonel  Browne  states  his  force  to  have  been  one  hundred  soldiers 
and  seventy  Indians,  and  that  he  was  joined  by  four  hundred  loyal  militia 
(Curwin's  Journal,  658). 

2  McCall,  the  historian  of  Georgia,  represents  Wylley  as  a  captain  in 
the  British  service,  but  Browne  states  that  he  was  one  of  those  who  had 
taken  the  oaths  and  obtained  protection,  and  on  this  occasion  acted  as 
guide  and  betrayed  them  (Curwin's  Journal.,  supra). 


260  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  Browne's  position,  decided  to  attack  at  once,  hoping  to 
carry  Browne's  encampment  by  surprise.  Browne,  it  is 
said  by  McCall,  had  been  warned  by  Wylley  of  the  dan- 
gerous position  he  had  taken,  and  the  necessity  to  be  on 
the  alert  when  opposing  an  officer  of  Harden's  enterpiise, 
but,  imprudent,  and  possessing  no  quality  of  an  officer 
but  courage,  he  had  retired  to  a  house  some  little  dis- 
tance from  the  camp  and  had  gone  to  sleep.  By  some 
intelligence  Browne's  officers  were  apprised  of  Harden's 
approach,  and  were  forming  their  ranks  when  Harden's 
troops  commenced  the  attack.  The  contest  lasted  half 
an  hour,  when,  overpowered  by  superior  numbers  and 
discipline,  Harden  was  compelled  to  retreat,  which  he 
effected  in  good  order  and  carried  off  his  wounded.  The 
American  loss  was  seven  killed  and  eleven  wounded. 
The  loss  of  the  enemy  was  about  the  same.^  Colonel 
Harden  returned  to  an  island  in  Coosawhatchie  swamp, 
upon  which,  like  Marion  at  Snow  Island  in  the  Pee  Dee,  he 
had  established  his  headquarters.  There  his  wounded  were 
left  until  recovered.  These  wounded  were  for  some  time 
sheltered  and  furnished  with  food  and  other  necessaries  by 
three  Whigs,  William  Rawls,  Colton  Rawls,  and  Leonard 
Tanner.  Unfortunately  Tanner  was  taken  prisoner  by 
some  neighboring  Loyalists  while  he  was  engaged  in  this 
service,  and  murdered  because  he  would  not  discover  the 
place  where  the  wounded  were  concealed.  Still  greater 
atrocities  followed.  Among  the  prisoners  taken  at  Wig- 
gins's  Hill  was  Wylley,  who  had  piloted  Browne's  detach- 
ment to  Mathews's  Bluff,  and  who  they  alleged  had  treach- 
erously led  the  detachment  into  that  difficulty.     He  was 

1  Colonel  Browne  states  that  the  militia  under  his  command  during  the 
action  deserted  to  a  man  and  joined  Harden,  who,  thus  reenforced,  the 
next  morning  renewed  the  attack,  but  was  again  repulsed  (Curwin's 
Journal^  654). 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  261 

turned  over,  it  was  said,  by  Browne  to  the  Indians,  who 
ripped  him  open  with  their  knives  in  Browne's  presence 
and  tortured  him  to  death.  They  stripped  the  inhabitants, 
both  men  and  women,  of  their  clothes,  and  then  set  fire  to 
their  houses.^  But  the  most  tragic  story  of  the  time  is  that 
of  Mrs.  McKoy.  This  lady,  a  widow,  whether  a  relative 
of  Captain  McKoy,  who  took  so  active  a  part  here  at  the 
time,  does  not  appear,  had  fled  from  her  residence  at 
Darien  in  Georgia  into  South  Carolina  for  refuge.  Her 
elder  son,  Rannal  McKoy,  a  youth  of  seventeen  years  of 
age,  was  with  Harden  at  Wiggins's  Hill  and  was  taken 
prisoner.  His  mother,  hearing  of  his  captivity,  repaired  at 
once  to  Browne's  camp,  having  furnished  herself  with  some 
refreshments  which  she  presented  to  Browne  as  a  means  of 
obtaining  more  ready  access.  Browne  accepted  the  refresh- 
ments, but  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  her  entreaties,  and  would 
not  permit  her  to  have  an  interview  with  her  son,  whose 
fate  she  already  foresaw.  She  was  forced  out  of  the  camp. 
Captain  McKinnon,  a  Scotch  officer,  a  soldier  of  honor, 
unused  to  such  murderous  warfare,  is  said  to  have  remon- 
strated with  Browne  against  hanging  the  youth,  and  to 
have  given  Mrs.  McKoy  some  assurance  that  her  son  would 
be  safe.  Browne  that  night  caused  a  pen  to  be  made  of 
fence  rails  about  three  feet  high,  in  which  he  placed  his 
prisoners  and  covered  it  over  with  the  same  materials. 
Mrs.  McKoy,  following  her  son,  had  come  again  to  the  camp, 
but  was  not  permitted  to  enter  it.  Captain  McKinnon, 
the  advocate  of  humanity,  was  ordered  out  of  the  way. 
The  next  morning  the  prisoners,  Rannal  McKoy,  Britton 
Williams,  George  Smith,  George  Reed,  and  a  Frenchman 

1  This  is  the  story  as  told  by  McCall ;  but  it  is  due  to  justice  to  say 
that  Colonel  Browne  denies  it,  and  states  that  Wylley  (or  Willie  as  he 
spells  the  name)  was  killed  instantly  by  an  Indian  chief  with  a  tomahawk, 
because  of  their  betrayal  by  him. 


262  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAEOLINA 

whose  name  is  not  known,  were  ordered  forth  to  the  gal- 
lows ;  and,  after  hanging  until  they  were  nearly  dead, 
they  were  cut  down  and  delivered  to  the  Indians,  who 
scalped  them  and  otherwise  abused  their  bodies  in  their 
accustomed  savage  manner.^  But  notwithstanding  these 
cruelties  the  people  were  not  subdued.  Captain  McKoy 
soon  returned  to  his  station  on  the  banks  of  the  Savannah, 
and  had  the  address  to  keep  together  a  party  sufficient  to 
intercept  supplies  going  up  the  river  to  the  British  garri- 
son at  Augusta.2 

In  the  meanwhile  General  Pickens,  since  his  return  from 
North  Carolina,  had  been  engaged  in  rousing  the  people  in 
Ninety  Six  District,  in  which  he  was  most  zealously  and  ably 
seconded  by  the  two  Hammonds,  Colonel  Samuel  Hammond 
and  Colonel  Le  Roy  Hammond.  Colonel  Samuel  Hammond, 
joined  by  Major  James  Jackson  of  Georgia,  was  charged  to 
pass  into  Georgia  for  similar  purposes.  Passing  through 
Ninety  Six  District,  they  arrived  on  the  Savannah  River 
near  Pace's  Ferry,  in  what  is  now  Edgefield  County,  about 
twenty-four  miles  above  Augusta ;  there  they  were  joined 
by  Captain  Thomas  Kee  of  Colonel  Le  Roy  Hammond's  regi- 
ment, with  a  number  of  men.  The  next  day  Captain  Kee 
was  detached  to  attack  a  party  of  Tories  assembled  under 
a  Captain  Clarke  at  his  residence  on  Horner's  Creek,  a 
branch  of  Stevens's  Creek,  in  what  is  now  Edgefield  County. 
Clarke  was  killed  and  the  company  all  made  prisoners.  The 
party  then  marched  to  Colonel  Le  Roy  Hammond's  mill  on 
the  Savannah,  attacked  the  British  post  there,  broke  up  the 
mill,  and  took  all  the  provisions  belonging  to  the  enem3^ 

1  Colonel  Browne  admits  the  execution  on  the  gallows  of  McKoy  and 
eleven  others,  but  alleges  that  they  were  executed  because  of  the  murder 
of  Kemp  and  his  party.  He  also  admits  that  he  ordered  the  horses  of  the 
plunderers  of  the  king's  stores  to  be  burnt  (Curwin's  Journal^  654). 

2  Ramsay's  devolution,  vol.  II,  236-238  ;  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II, 
362,  366. 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  263 

Joined  by  two  or  three  hundred  men  from  Colonel  LeRoy 
Hammond's  regiment  in  a  few  days,  Colonel  Samuel  Ham- 
mond's force  was  now  so  increased  as  to  justify  the  detach- 
ment of  Major  Jackson  to  cross  into  Georgia  and  to  join 
the  troops  collecting  on  that  side  of  the  river. ^ 

On  the  16th  of  April,  that  is  three  days  after  Harden  had 
captured  Fort  Balfour,  and  the  day  after  Marion  and  Lee 
had  laid  siege  to  Fort  Watson,  Lieutenant-Colonel  William- 
son of  Georgia,  in  the  absence  of  Colonel  Clarke,  who  was  ill 
with  the  small-pox,  having  reassembled  their  men  at  the  ap- 
pointed rendezvous  on  Little  River,  marched  to  Augusta, 
where  he  was  joined  by  some  militia  from  the  southern 
part  of  that  State  with  a  few  men  from  Burke  County. 
Williamson  took  position  at  twelve  hundred  yards  dis- 
tance from  the  British  lines,  and  fortilied  his  camp.  If 
Browne  had  moved  out  at  once  and  attacked  him,  the  issue 
would  probably  have  been  favorable  to  the  British,  as  they 
had  the  advantage  of  the  artillery.  But  Browne  was  de- 
terred by  the  exaggerated  reports  of  Williamson's  strength. 
General  Pickens  at  this  time,  as  before  mentioned,  with 
about  four  hundred  men  of  Anderson's  regiment,  was 
manoeuvring  between  Augusta  and  Ninety  Six,  to  pre- 
vent the  garrison  of  that  j)lace,  under  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Cruger,  from  reenforcing  Browne,  having  Colonels  Bran- 
don and  Hayes  hovering  on  the  eastward  of  Ninety  Six 
to  recruit  their  forces  and  intercept  supplies  from  that 
quarter.^ 

About  the  15th  of  May  Colonel  Clarke,  having  so  far  re- 
covered from  the  small-pox  as  to  resume  his  command,  came 
into  camp,  bringing  with  him  a  reenforcement  of  one  hun- 
dred men.  About  this  time  a  Major  Dill  collected  a  party 
of   Loyalists,  with  the  intention  of  joining  Browne  and 

1  Memoirs  of  Colonel  Samuel  Hammond,  Johnson's  Traditions^  507. 

2  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II,  367. 


264  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

forcing  the  Americans  to  raise  the  siege,  but  Clarke  de- 
spatched Captains  Shelby  and  Carr  with  a  party  of  moun- 
taineers and  Georgians,  who  surprised  them  on  Walker's 
bridge  on  Brier  Creek,  killed  and  wounded  a  number,  and 
dispersed  the  rest  without  sustaining  any  loss.^  Believing 
himself  now  secure  against  the  necessity  of  a  retreat,  Clarke 
sent  the  horses  of  his  troops  with  a  guard  of  six  men  to 
Beech  Island,  below  Augusta,  on  the  Carolina  side.  Browne, 
learning  of  this,  despatched  a  party  of  regular  troops,  militia, 
and  Indians  down  on  the  river  bank  and  in  canoes  to  cut 
off  the  guard  and  bring  off  the  horses.  Clarke  ordered 
Shelby  and  Carr  at  once  in  pursuit,  but  too  late ;  Browne's 
detachment  succeeded  in  the  enterprise,  killed  the  guard, 
and  were  returning  with  the  booty  when  Shelby  and  Carr, 
lying  in  wait  in  a  thicket,  attacked  them,  and  following 
their  example,  spared  the  life  of  none  that  fell  into  their 
hands.  Nearly  half  of  the  detachment  of  the  enemy  were 
killed  and  the  rest  ran  away.  The  horses  were  recovered 
without  loss.2  Thus  had  Pickens  been  gathering  his  forces 
around  Augusta,  which  was  practically  in  a  state  of  siege 
from  the  15th  of  Ma,j. 

General  Greene  having  determined  upon  the  investment 
of  Ninety  Six,  his  first  object  was  to  prevent  the  garrison's 
escape  into  Georgia,  and  for  this  purpose  ordered  Colonel 
Lee  thither  with  all  despatch ;  and  thus  it  was  that,  while 
Lord  Rawdon  was  sending  message  after  message  to  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Cruger  to  abandon  the  post,  Pickens  on 
the  one  side  and  Greene  upon  the  other,  independently  of 

1  Captain  Moses  Shelby  was  a  brother  of  Colonel  Isaac  Shelby ;  he  had 
served  at  the  siege  of  Savannah  and  at  Cowpens  (King's  3Iountam  and  its 
Heroes,  171,  417).  Captain  Patrick,  or  Paddy,  Carr  had  been  an  Indian 
trader,  a  reckless  and  brutal  man,  who  had  served  at  King's  Mountain 
(Ibid.,  124,  125,  340,  341). 

2  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II,  368. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  265 

each  other  and  with  different  motives,  were  alike  manoeu- 
vring to  prevent  his  doing  so.  Lee,  with  his  usual  prompt- 
ness and  vigor,  began  his  march  in  the  course  of  a  few 
hours  after  the  surrender  of  Maxwell,  proceeding  thirteen 
miles  that  evening.  Resuming  his  march  at  a  very  early 
hour  next  morning,  he  pressed  forward  with  the  utmost 
expedition,  relieving  his  fatigued  troops  by  occasionally 
dismounting  his  dragoons  and  mounting  his  infantry. 
Approaching  Ninety  Six  in  the  course  of  his  march,  he  de- 
tached a  squadron  of  horse  under  Major  Rudulph  towards 
the  post  with  the  hope  by  his  sudden  dash  of  seizing  pris- 
oners, from  whom  information  could  be  obtained  of  the 
state  of  the  garrison.  Rudulph,  concealing  his  approach, 
appeared  suddenly  near  the  town,  but  was  not  so  fortunate 
as  to  find  a  single  individual  of  the  garrison  without  the 
lines.  From  two  countrymen  whom  he  seized  he  learned 
that  Lieutenant-Colonel  Cruger,  hearing  of  Greene's  ad- 
vance upon  Camden,  had  been  industriously  engaged  in 
strengthening  his  fortifications  and  was  determined  not  to 
abandon  his  post.  Tliis  information  Lee  at  once  forwarded 
to  Greene,  thus  removing  any  apprehension  on  his  part 
that  Cruger  would  attempt  to  reenforce  Browne.  Lee 
reached  the  vicinity  of  Augusta  on  the  third  day  of  his 
march,  having  covered  seventy-five  miles  from  Fort 
Granby  in  that  time.  And  now  again  Lee  met  with  his 
usual  fortune  of  reaping  where  others  had  sown. 

The  British  continued,  during  the  war,  the  customary 
sending  of  annual  presents  to  the  Indians,  and  thus  secur- 
ing to  the  Royal  government  their  allegiance  and  assist- 
ance. It  happened  that  this  was  just  about  the  time  for 
the  presents  to  be  sent,  and  Clarke,  on  the  lookout  for  their 
coming,  had  ordered  some  of  his  men  down  the  river  to 
intercept  them.  The  boats  containing  the  goods  appeared 
as  expected,  and  were  at  once  attacked  by  the  party  Clarke 


266  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

had  sent  who  drove  their  guard  into  Fort  Galphin,  or  Fort 
Dreadnought,  as  it  was  sometimes  called,  the  boats  lying 
under  cover  of  its  guns.  This  fort,  as  it  was  called,  was, 
like  Fort  Motte,  a  small  stockade  around  the  farmhouse  of 
George  Galphin,  who  had  been  a  deputy  superintendent  of 
Indian  affairs.  It  was  situated  on  the  north,  or  South  Caro- 
lina, side  of  the  Savannah  River,  twelve  miles  below  Augusta, 
and  was  garrisoned  by  two  companies  of  Colonel  Browne's 
infantry.  The  stream,  though  narrow  here,  is  deep,  and 
riflemen  among  the  trees  which  covered  its  bank  swept  the 
decks  of  the  boats  not  provided  against  such  an  attack. 
Here  Clarke  was  carefully  guarding  this  invaluable  prize 
when  joined  by  Pickens  and  now  some  days  after  by  Lee.^ 
This  latter  officer  had  been  preceded  by  one  of  his  officers, 
Captain  O'Neall,  with  a  light  party  of  horse  charged  with 
the  collection  of  provisions  and  information,  and  from  this 
officer  he  learned  the  pleasing  intelligence  when  at  some 
distance.  Upon  reaching  the  neighborhood.  Colonel  Lee 
was  complimented  with  the  request  to  undertake  the  re- 
duction of  the  post,  and  he  detached  Major  Rudulph  of  the 
Legion  upon  the  enterprise.  A  strong  detachment  of 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina  troops,  the  latter  consisting 
of  Colonel  Hammond's  regiment  except  one  company  and 
what  of  Colonel  Harden's  regiment  was  with  him,  marched 
to  cover  and  cooperate  with  Major  Rudulph ;  but  the  fort 
capitulated  on  the  21st  of  May  after  little  resistance  and 
slight  loss  to  the  Americans;  one  man  died  of  heat  and 
fatigue,  and  8  or  10  were  wounded.  The  British  lost  3 
or  4  killed  and  126  prisoners,  including  70  commissioned 
officers  and  privates  in  the  regular  service.  But  the  most 
valuable  acquisition  was  a  quantity  of  clothing,  blankets, 
small  arms,  rum,  salt,  and  other  articles  which  were  much 

1  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II,  370  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II, 
131. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  267 

needed,  and   some   ammunition  and   articles  of   military 
equipment.^ 

Colonel  Lee,  whose  ambition  and  selfishness  in  the  in- 
terests of  his  own  command  had  embroiled  himself  and 
the  Commander-in-chief  with  two  of  the  three  South  Caro- 
lina generals,  had  now  entered  upon  a  service  which 
brought  him  into  contact,  without  bringing  him  under  the 
command,  of  the  third.  Fortunately  for  the  service, 
General  Pickens  possessed  both  a  modesty  and  a  tact  which 
were  at  once  illustrated  upon  his  again  coming  to  act 
with  the  Continental  troops  after  serving  with  them  in 
North  Carolina.  He  appealed  at  once  to  Greene,  represent- 
ing the  destitute  condition  of  the  men  under  his  command, 
and  begged  that  they  might  be  permitted  to  share  in  some 
part  of  the  goods  taken  at  Fort  Galphin.  He  had  been  a 
favorite  of  Greene's  in  the  North  Carolina  campaign,  and 
Greene  at  once  responded  to  his  appeal,  and  authorized 
him  to  divide  the  whole  according  to  his  sense  of  justice 
and  the  good  of  the  service.  Pickens  set  aside  the  mili- 
tary stores  for  the  public  service,  sent  thirteen  wagons 
with  rum,  salt,  sugar,  medicines,  etc.,  for  the  main  army, 
and  divided  the  clothing  into  three  equal  parts,  one  of 
which  he  assigned  to  Georgia,  another  to  South  Carolina, 
and  the  third  to  the  Continental  troops.  At  Greene's  sug- 
gestion the  fowling-pieces,  of  which  the  number  was  con- 
siderable, were  divided  among  the  militia,  only  making 
the  distribution  the  means  of  retaining  them  for  a  specified 
time  in  service. ^     It  having  been  arranged  between  Gen- 


1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  131 ;  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II, 
371.  Colonel  Lee's  account  of  this  affair  has  not  been  followed,  because 
Judge  Johnson  shows  that  he  was  not  present ;  and  this  is  admitted  by 
Mr.  Lee  in  his  reply  to  Judge  Johnson  (see  Campaigns  in  the  Caro- 
linas,  390). 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  132. 


268  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

eral  Pickens  and  Colonel  Lee  that  the  latter  should  con- 
duct the  operations  against  the  post  at  Galphin's  plantation 
while  the  former  made  the  necessary  arrangements  and 
preparations  for  the  complete  investure  of  Augusta,  upon 
the  return  of  Rudulph  from  Fort  Galphin  General  Pickens 
prepared  for  the  purpose. 

The  post  at  Augusta  was  defended  by  two  works,  called 
Fort  Cornwallis  and  Fort  Grierson,  constructed  near  the 
river  bank,  about  half  a  mile  distant  from  each  other.  Fort 
Grierson  was  erected  near  a  ravine  that  falls  into  the 
Savannah  about  half  a  mile  above  the  town,  and  Fort 
Cornwallis  lower  down  the  river.  The  forts  were  supplied 
with  water  from  the  river,  but,  situated  on  a  plain  not 
much  elevated  above  the  river  bed,  water  could  be  obtained 
only  by  digging.  Colonel  Browne,  commanding  the 
British  forces  in  upper  Georgia,  had  his  headquarters  in 
Fort  Cornwallis,  which  was  garrisoned  by  about  320  pro- 
vincials, with  200  negroes,  who,  if  not  armed,  relieved  the 
regular  troops  of  fatigue  duties  and  work  upon  the  fortifi- 
cations. Fort  Grierson  was  defended  by  about  80  militia 
and  two  pieces  of  artillery.  At  a  point  equally  calcu- 
lated to  act  upon  either  fort,  Pickens  constructed  a  small 
work  for  the  purpose  of  using  his  artillery  with  security 
and  effect.  On  the  23d  of  May  a  junction  was  formed 
by  Pickens,  Lee,  and  Clarke;  and  after  reconnoitring 
the  ground  and  the  British  works,  it  was  determined  to 
dislodge  Colonel  Grierson  and  to  destroy  or  intercept 
him  in  his  retreat  to  Fort  Cornwallis.  General  Pickens 
and  Colonel  Clarke  were  to  attack  the  fort  on  the  north- 
west, while  the  militia  and  Major  Eaton's  North  Carolina 
battalion,^  and  some  Georgia  militia  under  Major  Jackson, 

1  Major  Pinketham  Eaton  began  his  military  career  as  a  captain  in  the 
Third  North  Carolina  Continental  Regiment.  His  commission  as  captain 
was  dated  16th  of  April,  1776,  and  on  the  22d  of  November,  1777,  he  ^vas 


IN   THE   KE VOLUTION  269 

were  to  pass  down  the  river  and  attack  the  work  upon  the 
northeast,  while  Lee,  with  his  infantry  and  artillery,  took 
a  position  south  of  the  fort,  so  as  to  support  Eaton  or 
keep  Browne  in  check  if  he  should  come  out  to  attempt  to 
save  Grierson's  command  in  case  he  should  evacuate  his 
works  and  retreat  to  Fort  Cornwallis.  The  cavalry,  un- 
der Eggleston,  were  posted  on  the  skirt  of  the  woods  to 
the  south  of  Lee,  ready  to  fall  upon  Browne's  rear  if  he 
attempted  to  sally  out.  Discovering  that  Grierson  was  in 
a  critical  situation,  Browne  drew  out  a  part  of  the  com- 
mand and  advanced  with  two  field-pieces  with  the  appear- 
ance of  giving  battle  to  save  Grierson,  who  was  warmly 
assailed  by  Pickens  and  Eaton.  Lee  opposed  Browne, 
who,  not  deeming  it  prudent  under  existing  circumstances 
to  persevere  in  the  attempt,  confined  his  interposition  to  a 
cannonade,  which  was  returned  by  Lee,  with  very  little 
effect  on  either  side.  Grierson,  finding  that  resistance 
would  be  vain,  determined  to  abandon  the  position  and 
throw  his  command  into  Fort  Cornwallis.  He  attempted 
to  retreat  under  cover  of  the  river  bank,  but  Colonel 
Clarke  intercepted  him,  and  his  whole  party  were  killed, 
wounded,  or  taken.  The  opportunity  of  revenge  upon 
any  of  Browne's  men  was  not  avoided ;  and,  indeed,  it  is 
said  that  Grierson  had  likewise  rendered  himself  pecul- 
iarly odious  to  the  Georgians  by  his  cruel  practices.^  In 
Georgia  the  war  between  Whig  and  Tory  was  now  waged 
without  quarter,  and  in  this  affair  the  Georgians  bore  the 

promoted  to  be  major.  He  had  been  General  Jetliro  Sumner's  most  active 
assistant  in  raising  the  new  levies,  and  was  the  first  officer  assigned  to 
active  service  in  the  campaign  of  1781.  His  early  promotion,  and  the 
admiration  which  General  Sumner  had  for  him,  is  sufficient  evidence  of 
his  skill  and  courage  as  a  soldier  ;  and  Lee  testifies  to  his  great  amiability 
of  temper,  which  had  endeared  him  to  his  comrades,  — No.  Ca.  in  1780- 
81  (Schenck),  418. 

1  McCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II,  274. 


270  HISTOKY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

principal  part.  The  killed  were  far  beyond  the  usual  pro- 
portion to  wounded  and  prisoners  —  thirty  were  killed 
and  only  forty  odd  made  prisoners.  A  few  only  of  the 
Americans  were  wounded,  and  fewer  still  killed ;  but,  un- 
fortunately, among  the  latter  was  Major  Eaton  of  North 
Carolina,  who  some  accounts  represent  as  falling  gallantly 
at  the  head  of  his  battalion,  while  others  intimate  that  he 
was  made  a  prisoner  and  put  to  death  in  cold  blood.^  He 
had  been  but  a  short  time  in  this  service,  but  long  enough, 
it  appears,  to  have  endeared  himself  to  his  comrades. 

Pickens  and  Lee  now  pressed  forward  their  measures 
against  Fort  Cornwallis,  into  which  Browne  had  retired 
without  rendering  any  assistance  to  Grierson.  On  his 
return  to  the  fort,  finding  that  he  would  be  closely  invested, 
he  applied  himself  to  strengthen  his  position  in  every 
part.  It  is  said  that  he  placed  a  prisoner,  an  aged  citizen 
named  Alexander,  and  others  whom  he  had  long  in  cap- 
tivity, in  one  of  the  bastions  most  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the 
American  batteries,  one  of  which  was  manned  by  Captain 
Samuel  Alexander's  rifle  company,  thus  exposing  the  father 
to  be  killed  by  the  hand  of  his  son,  but  which  fate  fortu- 
nately the  father  escaped.  The  Americans  had  but  one 
field-piece,  a  six-pounder;  and  they  found  great  difficulty 
in  the  use  of  this,  as  the  surrounding  ground  presented  no 
swell  or  hill  which  would  enable  them  to  bring  it  to  bear 
upon  the  enemy.  At  Lee's  suggestion  resort  was  had  to  the 
Maham  tower  which  had  been  used  so  successfully  at  the 
reduction  of  Fort  Watson.  This  tower,  consisting  of  a  pen 
of  logs  raised  about  thirty  feet  high,  was  thrown  up  under 
cover  of  an  old  frame  house  which  Browne  had  allowed 
to  remain  near  the  fort.  Browne  made  two  sorties,  one  on 
the  night  of  the  28th  and  one  on  that  of  the  29th ;  but  both  of 
these  were  successfully  met  by  the  infantry  of  Lee's  Legion. 
1  Johnston's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  134. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTIOX  271 

On  the  1st  of  June  the  tower  was  raised  as  high  as  the 
enemy's  works,  seeing  which  and  recognizing  its  fatal  con- 
sequence, Browne  attempted  its  destruction,  but  found 
the  besiegers  alive  to  its  defence,  and  ready  with  their 
whole  force  to  receive  him.  Pickens  took  command  of  one 
division  of  the  militia  in  person,  supported  by  Captain 
Handy's  infantry  company  of  Lee's  Legion,  while  Clarke 
took  command  of  the  other,  supported  by  Rudulph's.  About 
ten  o'clock  at  night  Clarke's  division  were  charged  upon  by 
about  one-third  of  the  British  troops,  and  for  some  time 
the  conflict  was  furious,  but  Rudulph's  bayonets  forced  the 
enemy  to  retire.  While  the  detachment  was  engaged 
against  Clarke  and  Rudulph,  Browne  sallied  out  with  his 
remaining  force  against  Pickens,  where  the  contest  was 
equally  severe  until  Handy  pressed  the  bayonet,  which 
forced  Browne  to  retreat.  Upon  this  occasion  the  loss  on 
both  sides  exceeded  all  which  had  occurred  during  the 
siege  except  in  the  evacuation  of  Fort  Grierson. 

Failing  in  this  attempt,  Browne  now  resorted  to  a  strat- 
agem which  very  nearly  proved  successful.  He  sent  out 
a  sergeant — a  Scotchman  —  under  the  cloak  of  desertion, 
with  instructions  to  find  an  opportunity  of  setting  fire  to 
and  burning  the  tower.  Lee  received  the  pretended  de- 
serter and  was  for  a  time  completely  deceived  by  him. 
To  such  an  extent  had  the  adventurer  succeeded  that  Lee 
had  actually  arranged  for  the  deserter's  station  on  the 
tower,  with  a  view  to  his  directing  Captain  Finley's  gun 
upon  Browne's  magazine,  when  his  suspicions  became  in 
some  way  aroused,  and  he  countermanded  the  order  and  put 
him  under  charge  of  the  guard.  Another  threatened  disas- 
ter to  the  Americans  was  but  just  avoided.  Between  Lee's 
quarters  and  the  fort  there  stood  four  or  five  deserted 
houses,  some  of  them  near  enough  to  the  fort  to  be  used 
with  effect  by  riflemen  from  their  upper  stories.     It  had 


272  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

been  the  intention  of  Pickens  and  Lee  to  use  these  houses 
to  aid  in  covering  the  attack  when  the  enemy  should  be 
assaulted.  Early  on  this  night  all  but  two  of  the  houses 
were  burned  by  Browne.  The  besiegers  were  at  a  loss  to 
conjecture  why  the  two  houses  were  spared,  especially 
that  nearest  the  fort ;  but  the  general  impression  was  that 
they  had  been  purposely  spared  with  some  view  of  advan- 
tage. The  fire  from  the  tower  had  now  dismounted  the 
enemy's  guns  from  the  platform  and  raked  the  whole 
interior  of  the  fort,  and  it  was  determined  to  prepare  for 
the  assault  at  the  hour  of  nine  on  the  4th  of  June.  In  the 
course  of  the  night  of  the  3d  a  party  of  the  best  marks- 
men were  selected  from  Pickens's  troops  and  sent  to  the 
house  spared  by  Browne  and  nearest  to  the  fort.  The 
officer  commanding  the  detachment  was  ordered  to  arrange 
his  men  in  the  upper  story  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining 
the  number  which  could  with  ease  use  their  rifles  out  of 
the  windows  or  any  other  convenient  apertures,  then  to 
withdraw  and  report  to  Pickens.  It  was  intended  before 
daylight  to  have  directed  the  return  of  the  officer  to  the 
house  with  such  riflemen  as  he  should  have  reported  to  be 
sufficient.  All  other  preparations  had  been  made  for  the 
assault,  when  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  4th 
of  June  a  violent  explosion  occurred,  and  the  house  which 
was  to  have  been  occupied  by  Pickens's  riflemen  was  blown 
to  atoms.  Browne  had  pushed  a  sap  to  the  house,  which 
he  correctly  presumed  would  be  occupied  by  the  besiegers 
when  ready  to  strike  their  last  blow ;  and  hearing  the 
noise  made  by  the  party  the  evening  before  in  arranging 
for  their  stations,  assumed  that  the  approaching  morning 
was  fixed  for  the  general  assault.  Then  accidentally  the 
building  was  prematurely  blown  up,  and  the  party  destined 
for  it  escaped. 

On  the  31st  Colonel  Browne  had  been  summoned  to 


IN   THE    H  EVOLUTION  273 

surrender,  but  had  replied  that  it  was  his  duty  and  inclina- 
tion to  defend  the  post  to  the  last  extremity.  On  the 
morning  of  the  3d  the  summons  was  repeated,  but  again 
refused  in  similar  terms.  The  hour  of  nine  o'clock  of  the  4th 
now  approached  and  the  columns  for  assault  were  in  array, 
waiting  the  signal  to  advance.  But  Pickens  and  Lee,  to 
spare  further  bloodshed,  offered  still  another  opportunity  to 
the  besieged  to  avoid  unnecessary  sacrifice.  They  wrote, 
proposing  to  Browne  that  the  prisoners  in  his  possession 
should  be  sent  out  of  the  fort,  and  that  they  might  be  con- 
sidered his  or  theirs  as  the  siege  might  eventuate.  This 
was  declined.  But  the  storming  of  the  fort  was  still 
deferred,  probably  because,  as  the  4th  of  June  was  the 
king's  birthday,  it  was  supposed  that  as  a  point  of  honor 
Browne,  as  a  king's  officer,  would  be  less  inclined  to  sur- 
render on  that  day  than  on  any  other.  And  so  it  proved 
to  be.  For  on  the  morning  of  the  5th  Browne  himself 
opened  negotiations  which  resulted  in  the  surrender  of  the 
fort.  The  fort  and  garrison  were  surrendered  to  Captain 
Michael  Rudulph,i  who  was  appointed  to  take  possession, 
and  the  British  troops  marched  out  and  laid  down  their 
arms.  The  British  loss  during  the  siege  was  52  killed, 
and  334,  including  the  wounded,  were  made  prisoners  of 
war.  The  American  loss  was  16  killed  and  35  wounded, 
7  mortally. 

Measures  were  immediately  taken  for  the  protection  of 
Colonel  Browne,  who,  from  his  notorious  character  and  the 
barbarities  committed  by  him,  it  was  assumed  would  be  in 
danger,  surrounded  as  he  now  was  by  men  who  had  been 
so  long  the  victims  of  his  atrocities.  He  was  placed,  for 
safety,  under  a  strong  guard  of  Continental  troops  com- 
manded by  Captain  Armstrong.  The  precaution  was  nec- 
essary, for  young  McKoy,  the  brother  of  the  one  who  was 
1  A  brother  of  Major  John  Rudulph. 


274  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

but  a  few  days  before  so  cruelly  executed  by  Browne,  was 
present,  seeking  an  opportunity  of  putting  him  to  death ; 
and  doubtless  there  were  others  equally  bent  upon  the 
same  purpose.  The  American  officers,  unfortunately,  had 
not  been  so  careful  in  regard  to  Colonel  Grierson,  probably 
because  they  were  not  aware  that  he,  too,  was  scarcely  less 
odious  to  the  Georgians  than  Browne  himself.  He  was 
killed  the  afternoon  of  the  day  after  the  surrender  of  Fort 
Cornwallis.  General  Pickens,  on  the  7th  of  June,  thus 
reports  the  affair  to  General  Greene:  — 

"  A  very  disagreeable  and  melancholy  affair  which  happened  yes- 
terday in  the  afternoon  occasions  my  writing  to  you  at  this  time.  I 
had  ridden  down  to  Browne's  fort  where  I  had  been  but  a  few  min- 
utes when  information  was  brought  to  me  that  a  man  had  ridden  up 
to  the  door  of  a  room  here,  where  Colonel  Grierson  was  confined  and 
without  dismounting  shot  him  so  that  he  expired  soon  after,  and  in- 
stantly made  off ;  and  though  he  was  instantly  pursued  by  some  men 
on  horseback  he  effected  his  escape.  Major  Williams,  who  was  in  the 
same  room,  immediately  ran  into  a  cellar  among  other  prisoners ;  but 
standing  in  view  was  soon  after  shot  at  and  wounded  in  the  shoulder. 
I  have  given  orders  for  burying  Colonel  Grierson  this  afternoon  with 
military  honors,  but  as  Colonel  Browne  was  also  insulted  yesterday, 
though  the  man  was  for  some  time  confined  for  it,  and  the  people  are 
so  much  exasperated  against  some  individuals  I  have  found  it  neces- 
sary to  give  orders  to  cross  the  river  with  the  prisoners  under  the 
care  of  Colonel  Hammond's  Regiment,  and  Captain  Smith's  detach- 
ment of  North  Carolinans  and  march  them  to  Ninety-Six  or  till  I 
meet  your  order  respecting  them,  being  fully  persuaded  that  were  they 
marched  for  Savannah  they  would  be  beset  on  the  road,  but  think 
they  may  go  to  Charlestown  by  way  of  Ninety-Six  if  you  should  so 
order."  ^ 

This  cotemporaneous  report  explains  a  matter  about 
which  Stedman,  the  British  historian,  becomes  very  indig- 
nant, namely,  the  bravado,  as  they  allege,  of  marching  the 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  91 ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol,  II,  135. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  275 

British  prisoners  taken  at  Augusta  by  way  of  Ninety  Six, 
and  passing  them  in  full  view  of  the  garrison  there  be- 
sieged by  Greene's  army.  This,  Stedman  says,  was  done 
with  all  the  parade  of  martial  music  and  preceded  by  a 
British  standard  reversed.^  Colonel  Lee  states  that  the 
exhibition  before  Ninety  Six  was  owing  to  the  mistake  of 
the  officer  in  taking  the  nearest  road  to  the  town,  and  that 
he  reprimanded  him  for  exposing  the  corps,  in  charge  of  the 
prisoners,  to  the  guns  of  the  garrison.^  How  it  came  to 
Lee  to  do  so  is  somewhat  curious,  as  from  General  Pickens's 
letter  it  appears  that  the  guard  was  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Hammond,  sent  by  General  Pickens  to  report  to 
General  Greene.  But  however  that  may  be,  it  is  clear  from 
General  Pickens's  report  at  the  time  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  prisoners  were  sent  by  the  Avay  of  Ninety  Six  from 
motives  of  humanity,  and  not  with  a  view  of  intimidating 
the  British  garrison  there.  It  does  not,  however,  appear 
what  cause  of  indignation  would  justly  have  been  given, 
had  that  been  the  view  with  which  the  prisoners  were  de- 
spatched by  way  of  that  post. 

Strange  to  say,  while  the  rest  of  the  prisoners  were  for 
their  greater  security  sent  by  the  way  of  Ninety  Six,  Colo- 
nel Browne  himself  was  safely  guarded  on  the  road  to  Sa- 
vannah, though,  says  Ramsay,  he  had  lately  hanged  thirteen 
American  prisoners  and  delivered  to  the  Indians  some  of 
the  citizens  of  the  country,  who  suffered  from  their  hands 
all  the  tortures  which  savage  barbarity  had  contrived  to 
add  poignancy  to  the  pains  of  death.  And  this,  though  on 
his  way  he  had  to  pass  by  the  inhabitants  whose  houses  he 
had  lately  burned,  and  whose  relations  he  had  recently 
hanged.  The  only  adventure  recorded  was  that  at  Silver 
Bluff.     Mrs.  McKoy,  having  obtained  leave  of  the  officer 

1  Stedman 's  Am.    War,  vol.  IT,  369. 

a  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  371. 


276  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

in  command  of  his  guard  to  speak  to  Browne,  addressed 
him  in  words  to  the  following  effect:  — 

"  Colonel  Browne,  in  the  late  day  of  your  prosperity  I 
visited  your  camp  and  on  my  knees  supplicated  for  the  life 
of  my  son.  But  you  were  deaf  to  my  entreaties.  You 
hanged  him,  though  a  beardless  youth,  before  my  face. 
These  eyes  have  seen  him  scalped  by  the  savages  under 
your  immediate  command,  and  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  his  name  was  McKoy.  As  you  are  now  a  prisoner  to 
the  leader  of  my  country,  for  the  present  I  lay  aside  all 
thought  of  revenge ;  but  when  you  resume  your  sword  I 
will  go  five  hundred  miles  to  demand  satisfaction  at  the 
point  of  it  for  the  murder  of  my  son."  ^  But,  though 
Browne  was  exchanged  soon  after  and  was  again  in  the  field 
in  Georgia,^  he  survived  the  war,  and  when  peace  was  re- 
stored retired  first  to  Florida  and  thence  to  the  Bahamas.^ 

This  unfortunate  affair,  of  the  murder  of  Grierson  and 
the  attack  upon  Williams,  says  Johnson,  was  the  subject 
of  the  most  sensible  regret  of  all  the  American  officers.  A 
similar  outrage  had  but  a  short  time  before  been  com- 
mitted upon  the  person  of  Colonel  Dunlap,  and  although 
Pickens  made  every  effort  to  discover  the  murderer,  he 
had  failed  of  success.  A  large  reward  was  offered  by  proc- 
lamation for  the  discovery  of  the  murderer  of  Grierson, 
but  principle  in  some,  and  fear  and  fellow-feeling  in  others, 
effectually  precluded  information.  It  has  since  appeared, 
says  the  author,  that  the  attack  originated  in  individual 
revenge,  from  the  sons  of  some  of  the  old  men  confined  in 
Fort  Cornwallis.     Their  children  had  now  had  access  to 

1  Ramsay's  Revolution,  vol.  II,  240.  It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  this 
speech  of  Mrs.  McKoy  has  been  doctored,  —  to  use  an  expressive  if  not  an 
elegant  phrase,  —  and  prepared  after  the  event. 

2  McCall's  mst.  ofGa.,  vol.  II,  406. 
8  Am.  Loyalists  (Sabine),  180. 


IN   THE   llEVOLUTION  277 

them,  and  received  from  the  palsied  lips  of  their  parents 
such  tales  of  insult  and  oppression  as  instigated  men  other- 
wise correct  and  respected  to  the  commission  of  these  dis- 
graceful acts.  Human  passions  are  ever  carrying  on  the 
work  of  deception,  and  the  violation  of  the  sanctity  of  age 
or  female  delicacy  will,  in  precedence  to  all  others,  be 
deemed  justifiable  causes  for  the  more  bloody  revenge. 
Perhaps  the  suspicion  at  that  time  entertained  with  regard 
to  the  fate  of  Major  Eaton  may  not  have  been  without  its 
influence  in  suppressing  information.  Indignation  and 
thirst  for  revenge  because  of  a  recent  excursion  of  a  party 
of  Cuningham's,  in  which,  as  General  G-reene  expresses 
himself,  "savage  cruelty  never  equalled  the  conduct  of 
this  party,"  was,  it  is  said,  at  that  time  in  full  operation  on 
the  feelings  of  the  Whigs.  Many  an  eye  was  streaming 
for  the  murders  that  had  been  committed  by  that  party. ^ 
It  is  curious  that,  in  commenting  upon  the  murder  of  Grier- 
son,  no  comment  is  made  by  the  author  upon  the  recent 
monstrous  conduct  of  Browne  in  turning  over  the  captives 
to  the  knives  of  the  Indians,  if  indeed  he  had  really  done  so. 
Upon  the  capitulation  on  the  5th  Colonel  Lee  immedi- 
ately moved  forward  with  the  valuable  accession  of  artillery 
to  aid  in  the  reduction  of  Ninety  Six.  General  Pickens 
remained  at  Augusta  until  transportation  for  the  stores 
taken  there  and  at  Fort  Galphin  could  be  provided,  which 
being  accomplished  in  a  few  days,  he  also  marched  to  join 
General  Greene. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  136.    We  do  not,  however,  know 
to  what  this  allusion  refers. 


CHAPTER  XII 

1781 

General  Greene,  having  determined  to  proceed  against 
Ninety  Six  and  Augusta,  from  his  camp  at  Ancrum's  plan- 
tation, on  the  east  side  of  Friday's  Ferry,  on  the  17th  of 
May,  the  day  upon  which  he  returned  to  Sumter  the  com- 
mission he  had  resigned,  issued  to  him  the  following 
instructions :  — 

"  You  will  continue  your  command  at  this  place  and  encourage  the 
militia  in  all  parts  of  the  State  in  the  best  manner  you  can  for  cooper- 
ating with  the  American  army.  You  will  carefully  watch  the  motions 
of  the  enemy  below  this  place  &  advise  me  of  all  their  movements 
&  should  they  come  out  in  force  towards  Ninety-Six  you  will  take 
such  route  as  to  effect  a  junction  with  us  at  that  place. 

*'  You  will  have  the  fortifications  at  this  place  levelled  &  those  of 
Motte's  and  Orangeburgh,  if  not  already  compleated,  and  also  those 
of  Camden. 

"  We  shall  leave  part  of  our  spare  stores  at  this  place,  should  the 
enemy  make  any  movements  this  way  or  towards  Ninety-Six,  you  will 
give  the  officer  having  them  in  charge  orders  to  move  up  to  Wyns- 
borough  &  as  much  higher  up  into  the  country  as  you  may  think 
necessary. 

"  Such  of  the  negroes  as  were  taken  at  this  garrison  (as  are  not 
claimed  by  good  Whiggs  &  their  property  proved)  belonging  to  the 
Tories  or  disaffected,  you  will  apply  to  the  fulfilling  your  contracts 
with  the  ten-months  troops ;  such  parts  of  the  arms  and  stores,  as  the 
commissary  general  of  Military  stores  &  the  Quarter  Master  General 
ihall  deliver  over  to  you  you  will  apply  as  justice  and  the  good  of  tht< 
service  shall  require. 

"  But  above  all  things  pay  particular  attention  to  the  arranging  the 
militia  as  the  safety  of  the  country  in  a  great  measure  depends  thereon.! 


had  been  aom- 


w 


eVMM)V4 


la'jiiiji'/ 
I  YT3HIH 


IN    THE    REVOLUTION  279 

"  You  will  direct  General  Marion  to  take  such  a  position  &  employ 
him  in  such  a  manner  as  may  most  effectually  annoy  the  enemy  &  at 
the  same  time  cooperate  with  us  should  occasion  require  it."  ^ 

Having  thus  left  Sumter  in  the  entire  charge  of  the  opera- 
tions in  the  lower  country,  and  to  guard  him  against  Lord 
Rawdon,  General  Greene  only  continuing  his  camp  at 
Friday's  Ferry  (or  Fort  Granby)  long  enough  to  give  time 
for  Lieutenant-Colonel  Carrington,  his  quartermaster,  to 
procure  means  of  transportation,  took  up  the  direct  road 
for  Ninety  Six,  which  he  reached  on  the  22d. 

Ninety  Six,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  scene  of  the 
first  bloodshed  of  the  Revolution  in  South  Carolina,  that  of 
the  siege  of  the  19th  to  the  21st  of  November,  1775,^  —  a 
struggle  between  the  Whigs  and  the  Loyalists  of  the  State, 
which  had  resulted  in  a  treaty  between  the  parties,  scarcely 
made  before  broken.  Since  that  time  it  had  been  the  strong- 
hold of  Royalists,  and  the  point  from  which  the  beautiful 
and  rich  country  around  had  been  desolated.  It  had  been 
originally  a  post  against  the  Indians,  and  had  been  sur- 
rounded with  a  stockade  as  a  defence  against  their  incur- 
sions. The  stockade  was  still  remaining;  and  upon  the  fall 
of  Charlestown  it  had  been  immediately  garrisoned  by  the 
British.  Its  situation  rendered  it  of  great  importance  to 
them,  as  it  maintained  the  communication  with  the  Indians ; 
indeed,  it  had  derived  its  name  from  the  circumstance  that 
it  was  ninety-six  miles  distant  from  the  principal  town  of 
the  Cherokee  Indians,  called  Keowee.  It  was,  too,  the  most 
advanced  post  occupied  by  the  enemy,  and  supported  Cam- 
den and  Augusta.  As  such,  as  we  have  seen,  it  had  been 
an  object  of  great  solicitude  by  Sumter,  Clarke,  and  McCall, 
and  afterwards  by  Morgan  under  Greene. 

Upon  the  fall  of  Charlestown  the  post  had  been  com- 

1  Sumter  MSS. 

2  History  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  89-92. 


280  HISTORY   OF    SOUTH    CAROLINA 

manded  for  some  time  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Balfour,  upon 
whose  removal  to  the  command  of  the  town  he  had  been 
succeeded  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  John  Harris  Cruger. 
This  officer  was  a  native  of  New  York,  a  son-in-law  of 
General  Oliver  De  Lancey,  and  commandant  of  one  of  the 
three  battalions  known  as  De  Lancey's  corps  or  brigade.^ 
His  garrison  of  550  men  was  composed  entirely  of  Ameri- 
cans. His  own  battalion,  raised  in  New  York,  numbered 
about  150,  and  the  second  battalion,  New  Jersey  volun- 
teers, 200.  These  Northern  Tories  were  regulars  and  were 
as  good  troops  as  any  in  the  British  service.  To  these 
were  added  about  200  South  Carolina  loyal  militia.^ 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Cruger  was  totally  ignorant  of  the 
situation  of  the  army  under  Lord  Rawdon  ;  nor  had  he  any 
information  of  the  action  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  and  the  evacu- 
ation of  Camden  but  from  an  American  officer  who  hap- 
pened to  be  taken  prisoner.  But  he  was  aware  of  the 
growing  disaffection  of  the  people  of  Ninety  Six  and  of  a 
great  change  in  the  condition  of  affairs,  even  in  that  hith- 
erto most  loyal  region.  The  absence  of  all  communica- 
tions with  the  rest  of  the  province  could  not  but  warn 
him  of  danger.  Fortunately  for  the  king's  cause.  Colonel 
Cruger  was  equal  to  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion ;  and, 
unable  to  obtain  information  or  supplies,  he  set  about  at 
once  to  put  his  post  in  the  best  possible  state  of  defence. 
As  soon  as  the  post  had  come  into  the  possession  of  the 
British,  the  year  before,  works  had  been  added  to  the 
stockade,  under  Lieutenant  Haldane  of  the  engineers,  an 
aide-de-camp  to  Lord  Cornwallis.  The  principal  of  these, 
which  from  its  form  was  called  a  star,  was  on  the  right  or 
southeast  of  the  village  of  Ninety  Six,  as  the  county  town 

1  Sabine's  Am.  Loyalists,  234,  253;  "The  Battle  of  Eutaw  Springs," 
De  Peyster,  United  Service  Magazine.,  September,  1881,  312. 

2  Stedman's  Am.    War,  vol.  II,  366. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  281 

of  Ninety  Six  was  called.  It  consisted  of  sixteen  salient 
and  reentering  angles,  with  a  dry  ditch  and  abatis.  But 
none  of  the  works  were  in  a  finished  condition  at  this  time. 
In  this  state  of  uncertainty  the  whole  garrison  was  imme- 
diately set  to  work,  the  officers  cheerfully  sharing  in  the 
labor  with  the  common  soldiers ;  a  bank  of  earth  was  in  a 
short  time  thrown  up  round  the  stockade  and  the  whole 
strengthened  by  abatis.  Blockhouses  were  also  erected  in 
the  village,  traverses  made  for  the  security  of  the  troops, 
and  covered  communications  between  different  parts  of  the 
work.  On  the  north  of  the  village  was  a  valley  through 
which  ran  a  rivulet  that  supplied  the  place  with  water. 
The  county  prison,  having  been  fortified,  commanded  this 
valley  on  one  side  and  a  stockade  covered  it  on  the  other. 
Such  was  the  condition  of  this  post  and  garrison,  which  by 
accident  and  fortitude  alike  were  to  employ  almost  the 
whole  of  the  American  army,  between  three  and  four  times 
its  numbers,  for  a  month  in  a  useless  and  unsuccessful  siege, 
while  Lord  Rawdon  with  the  rest  of  the  British  army  re- 
covered from  the  effects  of  the  loss  of  the  other  posts, 
received  timely  reenforcements  and  regained  the  ground 
it  had  lost. 

Greene  reached  Ninety  Six  with  his  army  of  between 
one  thousand  and  eleven  hundred  men  on  the  night  of  the 
22d  of  May.i  It  was  dark  and  rainy,  and  so  favorable  to 
the  purposes  of  reconnoitring.  Colonel  Lee  asserts,  that 
General  Greene  committed  the  determination  of  the  course 
and  mode  of  approach  to  Count  Kosciuszko,  the  famous 
Pole,  who  was  then  serving  at  the  head  of  the  engineers  in 
the  Southern  army;  and  that  he,  not  regarding  the  im- 
portance of  depriving  the  enemy  of  water,  for  which  they 
were  dependent  on  the  rivulet,  applied  his  undivided  atten- 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  358  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,, 
vol.  II,  142. 


282  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLIN^ 

tion  to  the  demolition  of  the  star,  the  strongest  point  of 
the  enemy's  defence.^  Johnson  questions  this  statement, 
and,  upon  the  authority  of  a  member  of  the  general's  staff 
at  the  time,  states  that  the  general  himself  directed  the 
operations  of  the  engineers,  that  he  reconnoitred  the  posi- 
tion under  cover  of  the  favorable  weather  the  night  of 
their  arrival,  with  Kosciuszko  and  Captain  Pendleton,  his 
aide  ;  and  that  the  project  of  cutting  off  the  water  was 
well  weighed  and  considered,  and  rejected  on  mature  de- 
liberation because  another  supply  could  easily  be  obtained 
by  digging,  as  was  done  during  the  siege  of  Williamson's 
men  by  the  Tories  under  Robinson  in  November,  1775, 
when  a  well  was  dug  and  water  obtained  on  this  very  spot. 
It  was  also  considered,  he  adds,  that  the  star  commanded 
the  other  works,  and  that  the  approaches  against  the  water 
would  be  useless  against  the  star,  while  on  the  other 
hand,  by  the  efforts  to  defend  the  rivulet  the  enemy 
weakened  himself  at  the  principal  point  —  the  star.^  But 
an  obvious  answer  to  the  suggestion  was  the  apparent  fact 
that  the  enemy  had  gone  to  much  trouble  in  the  con- 
struction of  a  covered  way  to  the  rivulet,  and  incurred 
so  great  an  increase  of  duty  in  defending  it.  This  spoke 
for  itself  the  importance  Cruger  deemed  its  protection. 
Moreover,  as  Johnson  himself  points  out,  the  British  histo- 
rian Stedman  asserts  that  the  attempt  was  made  by  the 
garrison  with  great  labor,  but  that  no  water  was  found. 
Nor,  upon  a  careful  perusal,  does  the  account  of  the  siege 
of  1775  warrant  the  assurance  that  any  great  quantity  of 
water  was  then  obtained ;  for  Drayton,  the  historian,  states 
that  there  was  a  total  want  of  it  from  Sunday  morning,  the 
19th  of  September,  to  Tuesday  afternoon,  the  21st.  True, 
he  adds,  that  the  fatigue  parties,  with  great  labor,  after 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  359. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  142. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  283 

penetrating  through  a  very  tenacious  clay  soil  forty  feet 
deep,  obtained  a  supply  which  relieved  the  necessities  of  the 
garrison. 1  But  as  the  siege  was  terminated  on  Wednes- 
day, the  22d,  the  water  obtained  on  that  occasion  may  not 
have  been  more  than  enough  for  the  emergency  of  a  few 
hours.  But  however  that  may  be,  Greene  now  commenced 
his  operations  on  the  other  side  without  attempting  or 
even  threatening  interference  with  the  supply  of  water, 
upon  which,  as  it  really  happened,  the  garrison  depended. 
Whether  General  Greene  himself  decided  upon  this  plan  of 
the  siege,  or  left  it  entirely  to  the  direction  of  Kosciuszko, 
is  not  in  the  question  now  under  consideration  a  matter 
of  importance,  as  in  either  event  the  responsibility  for  its 
consequence  and  result  must  rest  upon  Greene  as  the 
commander. 

An  undulation  in  the  ground  seventy  yards  distant  from 
the  star  works,  at  a  point  which  the  enemy's  artillery  did 
not  cover,  was  chosen  as  the  position  from  which  to  com- 
mence operations.  Work  upon  a  mine  at  this  point  was 
begun  on  the  night  of  the  22d,  but  from  this  the  Ameri- 
cans were  quickly  driven.  Guns  were  at  once  mounted  by 
Cruger  on  one  of  the  salient  angles  opposite,  and  under 
their  fire  a  party  of  thirty  sallied  out,  entered  the  works, 
and  put  to  the  bayonet  every  one  they  found.  Finding 
from  this  experience  that  the  position  was  within  the 
range  of  the  enemy's  fire,  Greene  withdrew  his  parties  to 
a  more  secure  distance.  Here  they  broke  ground  on  the 
23d.  On  completing  the  first  parallel,  a  mine  directed 
against  the  star  was  commenced  under  cover  of  a  battery 
erected  on  the  enemy's  right.  Day  and  night  the  work  was 
pressed  by  the  besiegers,  and  sallies  were  constantly  made 
by  the  besieged.  The  besiegers,  alternately  laboring  in  the 
ditches  or  guarding  those  who  labored,  slept  only  on  their 
1  Drayton's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  122. 


284  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

arms ;  yet  so  zealously  and  expeditiously  did  they  work 
that,  although  frequently  interrupted  by  daring  attacks  of 
the  enemy,  scarcely  a  night  passing  without  loss  of  lives 
on  both  sides,  by  the  3d  of  June  the  second  parallel  was 
completed. 

Greene  now  summoned  the  garrison  to  surrender. 
Singularly,  the  message  was  not  only  carried,  but  signed, 
by  the  adjutant  general  instead  of  himself.  To  it  Cruger 
promptly  replied :  — 

"  I  am  honored  with  your  letter  of  this  day  intimating  Major 
General  Greene's  immediate  demand  of  the  surrender  of  his  Majesty's 
garrison  at  Ninety  Six;  a  compliance  with  which  my  duty  to  my 
Sovereign  renders  inadmissible  at  present."  ^ 

While  boldly  determined  to  maintain  his  post  at  all 
hazards,  Cruger  was  not  aware  how  serious  a  matter  this 
his  defiance  was  to  the  American  general.  The  latter  had 
now  been  for  some  time  in  possession  of  intelligence  that  a 
reenforcement  of  three  regiments  of  British  troops  had  sailed 
from  Cork,  and  were  probably  destined  for  the  port  of 
Charlestown.  Greene  did  not  know,  however,  what  was 
the  fact,  that  Lord  Cornwallis  had  sent  from  Wilmington 
a  despatch  boat  to  Charlestown,  directing  Lord  Rawdon  not 
to  permit  these  troops  even  to  cross  the  bar,  but  to  forward 
them  directly  to  New  York,  nor  that  that  despatch  boat 
had  been  interrupted  by  American  cruisers.^  Looking  out 
for  such  a  reenforcement  to  the  British  army  in  South 
Carolina,  as  early  as  the  26th  of  May  Greene  had  learned 
that  a  fleet  had  appeared  off  Charlestown  bar,  and  wrote 
to  Sumter  to  make  the  strictest  inquiry  who  or  what  they 
were.^     While  anxiously  waiting  for  information  confirm- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  144. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  146;  Clinton- Cormnallis  Contro- 
versy, vol.  II,  37. 

3  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  103. 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  285 

ing  or  denying  this  report,  Greene  was  impatiently  expecting 
the  arrival  of  fifteen  hundred  Virginia  militia  for  which  he 
had  called.  He  had  hoped  for  their  coming  in  time  to  have 
taken  part  in  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  and  their  failure 
to  do  so  was  one  of  the  causes  to  which  he  attributed  his 
defeat  on  that  occasion.  Now  he  had  been  calculating  with 
certainty  on  their  joining  him  before  Ninety  Six,  and  en- 
abling him  to  press  the  siege  with  vigor  and  bring  it  to  a 
close.  But  day  after  day  elapsed  under  this  last  hope,  when 
the  astounding  intelligence  arrived  that  their  march  had 
been  countermanded  by  Governor  Jefferson.  It  had  been 
Greene's  intention,  it  appears,  to  hasten  through  the  work 
in  South  Carolina  with  this  help,  that  he  might  march 
with  his  more  efficient  troops  to  reenforce  and  supersede 
Lafayette  in  Virginia.  But  this  the  action  of  the  gov- 
ernor of  that  State  had  prevented,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
remain  in  South  Carolina  in  this  uncongenial  service,  and 
to  wait  the  slow  progress  of  the  siege. 

In  the  meanwhile  Marion  had  written  to  him  that  Lord 
Rawdon  lay  at  Monck's  Corner,  and  asking  permission  to 
make  an  attack  upon  Georgetown.  This  request,  in  his  let- 
ter of  the  26th,  he  referred  to  Sumter  for  answer,  upon  two 
conditions :  first,  that  Lord  Rawdon  was  making  no  prepa- 
rations which  had  the  appearance  of  interrupting  the  sieges 
of  Augusta  and  Ninety  Six  ;  and  second,  that  Marion's 
moving  to  Georgetown  would  not  expose  Sumter's  own 
position  or  interfere  with  his  movements.  Colonel  Bran- 
don, he  writes,  had  called  at  Ninety  Six  on  his  return  home, 
and  shown  him  Sumter's  orders  to  bring  his  men  to  his  aid 
below,  but  that,  for  particular  reasons,  which  he  would  after- 
wards explain,  he  had  interfered  with  tliat  arrangement 
and  had  desired  Brandon  to  join  him  with  all  the  force 
he  could  collect,  to  expedite  the  reduction  of  Ninety  Six.^ 

1  Sumter  MSS. 


286  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

To  this  Sumter  replies,  acquiescing  in  this  diversion  of  his 
troops,  and  expressing  his  gratification  that  they  could  be 
of  service  to  the  general. ^  The  particular  reason,  which 
he  would  not  risk  committing  to  the  possibility  of  falling 
into  the  enemy's  hands,  was  doubtless  his  disappointment 
as  to  the  coming  of  the  Virginia  militia,  and  the  difficul- 
ties he  began  to  realize  in  the  siege  he  had  undertaken. 
Johnson,  indeed,  states  that  on  first  reconnoitring  the  post 
General  Greene  predicted  his  failure  in  the  attempt  to  re- 
duce it,  and  wrote  to  Lafayette  that  the  fortifications  were 
so  strong  and  the  garrison  so  large  that  success  was  very 
doubtful.2  ]3y^  T^i^j  i^r^^i  Y^Q^  i^i^ig  ijeen  ascertained  before 
turning  aside  from  the  pursuit  of  Rawdon  ?  The  post 
was  well  known.  Sumter  or  Pickens  could  no  doubt  have 
informed  him  minutely  as  to  its  works  and  its  garrison, 
without  the  waste  of  men  and  time  to  ascertain  its  condi- 
tion himself.  But  now  that  he  had  come  to  Ninety  Six  and 
sat  himself  down  before  the  post,  disappointed  in  the  reen- 
forcements  he  expected  from  Virginia,  he  had  no  other  re- 
liance but  upon  the  men  of  three  States  which  had  borne  the 
brunt  of  the  war  for  the  last  year.  He  immediately  issued 
orders  for  the  North  Carolina  levies  to  join  him,  and  appealed 
to  Governor  Rutledge,  Generals  Sumter,  Marion,  and 
Pickens  in  South  Carolina,  and  to  Colonel  Clarke  in 
Georgia  for  assistance.^ 

While  General  Greene  was  thus  engaged,  Marion,  having 
obtained  Sumter's  consent,  marched  on  the  3d  of  June  to 
Georgetown,  and,  appearing  before  it  on  the  5th,*  began  his 
approaches  ;  but  these  were  rendered  unnecessary,  for  on 

1  Letter  of  the  7th  June,  Nightingale  Collection. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  141. 
8  Ibid.,  145. 

*  This  date  is  usually  given  as  the  6th,  but  in  Marion^s  letter  to  Sum- 
ter of  the  6th  he  wrote,  ^^  Yesterday  I  levelled  all  the  works."  —  Sumter 
MSS. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  287 

the  night  after  the  British  garrison  evacuated  the  town,  tak- 
ing shipping  for  Charlestown,  whereupon  Marion  immedi- 
ately levelled  the  works.  Thus  it  was  that  three  sieges 
were  in  progress  at  the  same  time,  to  wit,  from  the  3d  to  the 
5th  of  June,  that  is,  at  Augusta,  Ninety  Six,  and  Georgetown. 
Augusta  and  Georgetown  were  taken  possession  of  on  the 
same  day.  It  was  while  at  Georgetown  that  Marion,  on  the 
6th  of  June,  received  intelligence  from  one  of  his  officers 
near  Haddrell's  Point  that  seventeen  transports  with  troops, 
said  to  be  two  thousand  in  number,  had  crossed  the  bar  and 
gone  into  Charlestown.  The  moment  Marion  received  this 
information  he  wrote  at  once,  informing  Sumter.^  Johnson 
observes  that  the  fleet  arrived  on  the  2d  of  June,  and  that 
some  idea  will  be  formed  of  the  efficiency  of  General 
Greene's  arrangement  for  procuring  intelligence,  when  it 
is  told  that  on  the  6th  he  received,  at  Ninety  Six,  Charles- 
town papers  of  the  2d  containing  the  news — the  distance 
is  near  two  hundred  miles.  He  cites  also,  as  an  instance  of 
Marion's  vigilance  and  capacity  in  procuring  intelligence, 
that  he  received  this  paper  the  same  day  that  it  was  printed, 
and  forwarded  it  through  Sumter,  who  by  some  fatality 
did  not  receive  the  intelligence,  though  it  passed  through 
his  hands,  until  the  enemy  had  commenced  his  march. 
But  in  this  statement  there  is  some  confusion  in  dates 
from  which  Sumter  suffers  to  the  advantage  of  Greene 
and  Marion. 

The  Royal  G-azette^  published  in  Charlestown  at  this 
time,  was  issued  in  the  afternoon  twice  a  week.  In  the 
issue  "  From  Wednesday,  May  30,  to  Saturday,  June  2," 
under  date  of  June  2,  we  find  this  item  :  — • 

"We  have  the  happiness  to  congratulate  our  readers  on  the  safe 
arrival  of  a  large  fleet  from  Corke  with  a  powerful  reenforcement  for 
the  Royal  Army.     They  came  to  anchor  this  afternoon  off  our  bar.     Mr. 

1  Sumter  MSS. 


283  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Greene,  we  are  well  assured,  lately  took  occasion  to  announce  in 
general  orders  to  the  army  that  the  fleet  above  mentioned  had  been 
captured  by  the  French." 

This  notice  in  the  Gf-azette  establishes  the  date  of  the 
arrival  of  the  fleet  off  the  bar,  which  had  been  some 
days  before  in  the  offing,  as  of  the  2d,  and  not  as  of 
the  3d,  as  stated  by  most  authors. ^  The  paper  might 
have  reached  Greene  some  time  before  the  10th,  possibly 
on  the  6th,  as  stated  by  Johnson,  but  it  did  not  come 
from  Marion;  it  is  apparent  that  Marion  knew  nothing 
of  it,  nor  did  it  give  Greene  any  information  as  to  the 
reenforcement  brought,  nor  assure  him  that  the  fleet  off 
Charlestown  bar  would  land  any  troops  which  it  may 
have  brought.  Indeed,  had  not  Lord  Cornwallis's  despatch 
boat  been  captured  by  the  American  cruisers  the  fleet  would 
not  have  crossed  the  bar,  but  would  have  sailed  for  Virginia. 
Greene  writes  to  Sumter  on  June  10th :  "  By  a  Charles- 
town  paper  of  the  2d  I  find  a  fleet  has  lately  arrived  at 
that  place  and  it  is  said  with  a  large  reenforcement.  As 
you  do  not  mention  anything  of  it  in  your  letter  I  imagine 
you  have  not  received  an  account  of  it.  Please  to  make 
particular  inquiry  into  the  matter. ^^"^  When  Greene  wrote 
this,  on  the  morning  of  the  10th  of  June,  he  certainly  had 
no  special  information  from  Marion.  It  was  the  paper  of 
the  2d  which  had  informed  him  of  the  arrival  of  the  fleet 
off  the  Charlestown  bar.  If,  indeed,  it  was  remarkable  that 
the  paper  should  have  reached  Greene  two  hundred  miles 
away  from  the  place  of  its  publication  within  four  days,  it 
would  have  been  more  wonderful,  if  not  impossible,  that  it 
should  have  done  so  through  the  hands  of  Marion,  who  then 
was  before  Georgetown,  thus  adding  many  miles  more  at  least 

1  Stedraan's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  371  ;  Annual  Begister,  vol.  XXIV,  91  ; 
Tarleton's  Campaigns,  480  ;  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  370. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  108. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTIOISr  289 

to  its  journey.  The  information  which  Greene  received 
from  Marion,  and  upon  which  he  acted,  he  received  through 
Sumter  on  the  10th,  after  he  had  written  the  letter  just 
quoted.  The  next  issue  of  the  Grazette^  that  published  on 
the  6th  June,  announces  :  "  Yesterday  afternoon  the  flank 
companies  of  the  regiments  lately  arrived  were  landed  in 
town.  Their  appearance  was  truly  elegant,  martial,  and 
healthy."  The  troops  landed,  therefore,  on  the  5th.  Marion 
at  Georgetown,  on  the  6th,  while  writing  to  Sumter  on  other 
matters,  received  intelligence  of  the  landing  of  these  troops, 
—  but  from  an  official  at  Haddrell's  Point,  and  not  by  the 
Gazette.  He  writes  :  ''  This  moment  Irec'd  intelligence  from 
one  of  my  off'"^  near  Haddrell's  point  that  seventeen  trans- 
ports with  troops,  s*^  to  be  two  thousand,  had  arrived  in 
Ch'stown,  which  information  he  had  from  two  of  our  officers 
who  sd  they  had  seen  the  vessels  go  in."  Marion  himself, 
therefore,  received  the  information,  not  from  a  newspaper, 
but  from  his  officers,  and  did  not  receive  it  until  the  day  after 
the  landing  of  the  British  troops.  The  information  he  im- 
mediately forwarded  to  Sumter  on  the  6th,  and  Sumter  for- 
warded it  as  soon  as  received,  on  the  8th,  to  Greene,  who 
received  it  on  the  10th,  after  he  had  despatched  to  Sumter 
the  letter  of  the  same  date  already  quoted,  instructing  him 
to  make  particular  inquiry  in  regard  to  the  fleet.  On  the 
receipt  of  this  information  Greene  writes  again  to  Sumter 
on  the  10th :  "  I  received  your  letter  of  the  8th  accompany- 
ing a  letter  from  Gen^  Marion.  I  wrote  you  this  morning 
respecting  the  reenforcements  mentioned  having  got  intelli- 
gence thereof  before  the  arrival  of  your  letter."  ^  From  these 
facts  it  is  clear  that  Sumter  was  at  no  fault  in  this  matter, 
and  that  Greene  did  not  receive  the  information  of  the 
disembarkation  of  the  troops  directly  from   Marion,  but 

1  Sumter  MSS. 

2  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  106. 

VOL.   IV.  —  U 


290  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

through  Sumter,  who  forwarded  it  to  him.  Nor  can  we 
agree  with  the  biographer  of  Greene,  that  the  incident 
exhibits  any  very  great  efficiency  in  his  arrangements  for 
procuring  intelligence.  The  receipt  of  the  paper  four  days 
after  it  was  published,  if  it  was  then  received,  was  certainly 
no  great  accomplishment.  Still  less  was  the  receipt  of  the 
information  of  the  landing  of  the  troops  five  days  after  it 
had  occurred.  But  the  inference  is  strong  that  Greene  had 
not  received  The  Royal  G-azette  of  the  2nd  before  the  10th.  It 
is  only  on  that  day  that  he  mentions  so  important  a  matter  to 
Sumter,  and  directs  him  to  make  particular  inquiry  in  regard 
to  it.  Surely,  if  he  had  received  the  paper  on  the  6th  or  any 
time  before,  he  would  not  have  delayed  to  the  10th  to  inform 
Sumter  and  to  instruct  him  to  make  inquiries  and  report. 
On  the  11th  Sumter  writes  that  he  has  received  no  further 
report  upon  the  subject.^ 

In  the  meanwhile  Colonel  Lee,  with  the  cavalry  of  his 
Legion,  had  reached  Ninety  Six  from  Augusta  on  the  8th, 
and  Greene,  on  the  receipt  of  Sumter's  and  Marion's  let- 
ters, at  once  put  Washington's  horse  and  the  cavalry  of 
Lee's  Legion  in  motion  to  join  Sumter  to  meet  the  new 
danger ;  and  in  his  letter  to  Sumter  he  writes  that  it  is  his 
wish  that,  if  the  enemy  should  advance  into  the  country,  he 
should  collect  all  his  force  and  skirmish  with  them,  moving 
out  of  their  way  all  the  cattle,  means  of  transportation,  and 
subsistence  —  that  it  was  his  intention  to  fight  the  enemy 
before  they  got  to  Ninety  Six.  "  Collect  all  the  force  you 
can,"  he  writes,  "  and  give  positive  orders  for  Gen^  Marion 
to  join  if  the  enemy  attempt  to  penetrate  the  country. 
The  force  from  Augusta,"  he  adds,  "has  arrived  at  this 
post,  and  I  think  when  we  are  collected  we  can  fight 
a  good  battle,  and  if  the  enemy's  force  do  not  exceed 

1  Letter  of  11th,  in  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charles- 
ton, 1899,  Appendix,  26. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  291 

twenty-five    hundred  we  shall    have   a  fair  prospect  of 
victory."  ^ 

The  British  reenforcement  which  arrived  from  Ireland 
consisted  of  the  Third,  Nineteenth,  and  Thirtieth  regi- 
ments of  foot,  a  detachment  of  the  Guards,  and  a  con- 
siderable body  of  recruits,  the  whole  under  the  command 
of  Colonel  Gould  of  the  Thirtieth.  Lord  Cornwallis's 
despatch  ordering  the  fleet  to  repair  at  once  to  Virginia 
had  been  intercepted,  as  has  been  stated;  but  it  appears 
that  under  previous  instructions  Lord  Rawdon  and  Colonel 
Balfour  had  been  directed  to  send  these  troops  on  to  that 
State  unless  the  service  in  this  required  their  presence 
here.  These  officers  made  known  to  Colonel  Gould  the 
power  which  Lord  Cornwallis  had  given  them  for  detain- 
ing such  part  of  his  command  as  they  might  deem  neces- 
sary, and  he  at  once  concurred  in  the  view  that  the 
immediate  defence  of  this  province  was  the  more  urgent 
service,  and  disembarked  his  troops.  Lord  Rawdon  about 
this  time  was  enabled  also  to  add  to  the  efficiency  of  his 
force  in  a  manner  which  relieved  him  of  one  of  his  greatest 
difficulties.  Since  the  movement  of  Cornwallis  into  North 
Carolina,  taking  with  him  Tarleton's  Legion  and  the  re- 
mains of  the  Seventeenth  Dragoons,  his  greatest  deficiency 
had  been  cavalry.  To  remedy  this  in  a  measure  the  loyal 
inhabitants  of  Charlestown  made  a  subscription  amount- 
ing to  near  3000  guineas,  which  sum  they  requested  his 
lordship  to  apply  to  the  purpose  of  equipping  a  corps  of 
dragoons  in  the  manner  he  should  judge  most  expedient.  In 
compliment  to  the  loyalty  of  the  gentlemen  who  had  made 
this  subscription,  Rawdon  determined  to  use  it  in  connection 
with  the  men  of  the  province,  and  accordingly  ordered  the 
South  Carolina  Regiment  of  Royalists  to  be  converted  into 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix, 
107. 


292  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

cavalry.  1  The  cavalry  thus  raised  was  put  under  the  com- 
mand of  Major  John  Coffin,  a  Loyalist  officer  from  Boston, 
who  commanded  the  few  cavalry  at  Hobkirk's  Hill. 

With  his  force  thus  increased,  now  consisting  of  some- 
thing more  than  1700  foot  and  150  horse.  Lord  Rawdon 
marched  on  the  7th  for  the  relief  of  Ninety  Six.  E[e  was 
joined  on  his  way  by  Colonel  Doyle  with  the  troops  he  had 
left  at  Monck's  Corner,  and  pressed  his  march  with  all  the 
rapidity  which  the  excessive  heat  of  the  weather  would  per- 
mit.2  With  Doyle's  detachment  Lord  Rawdon's  force  now 
amounted  to  a  total  of  2000  men.^ 

In  the  meanwhile  Greene  had  pressed  the  siege  of  Ninety 
Six.  His  approaches  continued  to  be  pushed  in  the  hope 
that  they  might  be  completed  in  time  to  force  the  submis- 
sion of  the  garrison  before  Lord  Rawdon  could  come  to  its 
assistance.  Upon  the  arrival  of  the  infantry  of  Lee's  Legion 
that  officer  was  directed  to  take  post  opposite  the  enemy's 
left,  and  on  the  12th  he  began  regular  approaches  against 
the  stockade  which  protected  the  garrison's  supply  of  water. 

Two  attempts  were  made  by  the  besiegers  to  bring  mat- 
ters to  a  crisis.  The  different  plans  which  had  been  adopted 
with  so  much  success  at  Fort  Watson  and  Fort  Motte  were 
each  now  in  turn  again  tried.  The  attempt  was  made  to 
fire  the  buildings  by  means  of  arrows  bearing  combustible 
substances,  as  at  Fort  Motte.  Cruger  unroofed  his  houses 
and  put  an  end  to  that  danger.  Then  it  was  tried  to  fire 
the  stockade,  as  had  been  done  at  Fort  Watson.  A  ser- 
geant and  nine  brave  men  of  the  Legion  approached  the 
stockade  from  the  most  concealed  direction,  and  when 
exposed  to  view  crawling  upon  their  bellies,  reached  the 

1  Rawdon's  letter  to  Cornwallis,  June  5,  1781,  Tarleton's  Campaigns, 
480-481  ;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  89-90. 

2  Annual  Begister,  vol.  XXIV,  92. 
^Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  373. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  293 

ditch,  but  unfortunately  the  sergeant  was  discovered  while 
in  the  act  of  applying  his  fire,  and,  with  five  of  his  men,  was 
killed.  The  remaining  four  escaped  unhurt,  although 
many  muskets  were  discharged  at  them  before  they  reached 
cover.  These  attempts  failing,  nothing  remained  to  the 
besiegers  but  the  slow  progress  of  regular  approaches. 

About  this  time  it  was  that  one  evening  a  countryman, 
says  Lee,  was  seen  riding  along  the  lines  south  of  the  town, 
conversing  familiarly  with  the  officers  and  soldiers  on  duty. 
There  was  nothing  in  this,  he  adds,  to  attract  particular 
attention,  as  from  the  beginning  of  the  siege  friends  in  the 
country  were  in  the  habit  of  visiting  camp,  and  were  per- 
mitted to  go  wherever  their  curiosity  led  them.  This  man 
was  supposed  to  be  one  of  these ;  but  when  he  reached  the 
great  road  leading  to  the  town,  in  which  quarter  were 
only  an  embankment  thrown  up  for  the  protection  of  the 
guards,  he  put  spurs  to  his  horse  and  rushed  with  full 
speed  into  town,  receiving  the  ineffectual  fire  of  the  Amer- 
ican sentinels  and  guards  nearest  him.  The  gate  was 
opened,  and  he  was  received  with  loud  expressions  of  joy. 
He  was  the  bearer  of  a  verbal  despatch  from  Lord  Rawdon 
to  Cruger,  announcing  his  arrival  at  Orangeburgh  in  ade- 
quate force,  and  informing  him  that  he  Avas  hastening  to 
his  relief.^  This  information  infused  new  life  and  deter- 
mination in  the  garrison,  and  was  correspondingly  depress- 
ing to  the  besiegers. 

The  Americans,  however,  continued  to  push  on  their 
works.  Maham  towers  were  erected,  but  Major  Green  of 
the  garrison,  who  commanded  in  the  star  redoubt,  finding 

'  1  Lee  states  that  this  messenger  held  in  hand  a  letter  as  he  rode  into 
the  garrison,  but  Stedman  asserts  that  he  bore  only  a  verbal  message, 
which  would  be  most  probable  under  the  circumstances  {Memoirs  of  the 
War  0/1776,  374  ;  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  371  ;  Johnson's  Life  of 
Greene,  vol.  II,  148). 


294  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

that  one  of  these  would  soon  overlook  his  parapet,  very 
judiciously  covered  it  with  sand-bags,  leaving  between  each 
bag  an  aperture  for  the  use  of  his  riflemen,  and  thus  ren- 
dered the  towers  in  a  great  measure  ineffectual.  The 
regular  approaches  had  been  carried  on  with  so  much  vigor 
that,  notwithstanding  repeated  interruptions  from  sallies  by 
the  enemy,  the  stockade  fort  was  now  so  completely  enfiladed 
by  a  triangular  fire  that,  being  no  longer  tenable,  it  was  on 
the  12th  evacuated  in  the  night.  The  loss  of  this  work 
was  a  great  blow  to  the  garrison.  It  cut  off  the  supply  of 
water.  This  had  been  anticipated  by  Colonel  Cruger,  who 
had  tried  the  digging  of  a  well,  but  without  success.  The 
sufferings  of  the  garrison  on  this  account  now  began  to  be 
extreme.  Water  could  only  be  obtained  from  the  rivulet 
at  night;  and  Stedman  relates  that  this  was  done  by  send- 
ing out  naked  negroes,  whose  bodies  in  the  darkness  were 
not  distinguishable  from  the  trees  surrounding  them.  The 
garrison  could  not  much  longer  have  endured  this  condi- 
tion of  things,  but  cheered  with  the  hope  of  Lord  Rawdon's 
approach,  they  yet  held  out. 

It  was  General  Greene's  hope  that,  with  the  reenforce- 
ment  of  Pickens  and  Clarke  from  Augusta,  and  the  junc- 
tion with  him  of  Sumter  and  Marion,  he  might  be  able  to 
meet  Lord  Rawdon  and  give  battle  without  raising  the 
siege  of  Ninety  Six.  And  for  this  purpose  he  was  calling 
upon  Sumter  for  information  in  regard  to  his  lordship's 
movements.  Sumter  was  at  Granby  on  the  Congaree,  with 
Colonel  C.  S.  Mydelton  in  command  of  the  greater  part 
of  his  brigade  at  Mc Cord's  Ferry,  some  thirty  miles  below. 
General  Greene,  it  must  be  observed,  had  reluctantly  given 
his  consent  to  Marion's  expedition  to  Georgetown,  and  in 
this  instance  he  was  undoubtedly  right  in  hesitating  to 
allow  Marion  to  put  himself  so  far  out  of  the  way  of  the 
line  of  present  operations.     He  had  cautioned  Sumter  only 


IN   THE   REVOLUTIOK  295 

to  allow  it  in  case  Lord  Rawdon  was  making  no  prepara- 
tions which  had  the  appearance  of  interrupting  the  sieges 
then  going  on  at  Augusta  and  Ninety  Six.  There  had  been 
no  such  appearances  at  that  time,  nor  indeed  had  Lord  Raw- 
don then  any  such  purpose,  as  the  fleet  had  not  arrived. 
Still,  the  capture  of  such  a  detached  post  as  Georgetown, 
out  of  the  way  of  any  line  of  communication,  and  so  only 
valuable  for  what  it  itself  contained,  scarcely  warranted  the 
risk  necessary  upon  so  long  a  separation  of  Marion's  com- 
mand from  cooperation  with  Greene's  army  upon  a  sudden 
emergency.  And  so  it  happened  that  his  position  at  George- 
town had  greatly  delayed  the  information  of  the  landing  of 
the  British  reenforcements  ;  nor  could  he  now  rejoin  Sum- 
ter in  time  to  interpose  before  Lord  Rawdon's  advance. 

On  the  14th  of  June  Colonel  Mydelton,  at  McCord's 
Ferry,  reported  to  Sumter  that  he  had  certain  accounts  of  the 
enemy's  marching  up  in  force  by  way  of  Orangeburgh;  that 
the  prevailing  report  was  that  they  were  going  to  Ninety 
Six ;  that  he  had  ordered  all  his  baggage  and  unarmed  men 
across  to  the  north  side  of  the  Congaree,  while  with  the 
armed  men  he  would  change  his  position  to  one  farther  up 
the  river,  as  a  defeat  in  his  present  situation  would  prove 
ruinous.  He  reported  also  that  Colonel  Lacey  had  just 
joined  him.^  This  report  Sumter  at  once  communicated  to 
Greene,  but  the  latter  could  not  believe  that  Rawdon's 
movement  was  against  Ninety  Six.  "  I  cannot  persuade 
myself,"  he  wrote  to  Sumter,  on  the  15th,  "  that  the  enemy 
mean  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  place.  If  they  attempt  it,  and 
we  can  collect  our  forces,  it  may  prove  difficult  for  them 
to  get  forward  or  backward.  Keep  in  front  of  the  enemy 
that  we  may  have  an  opportunity  to  fight  them  with  our 
collective  strength,"  etc.^     By  the  17th,  however,  he  be- 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  110-111. 

2  Ibid. 


296  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

came  more  alarmed,  and  wrote  to  Sumter  in  reply  to  his  of 
the  15th,  that,  as  the  enemy  continued  to  advance,  and  by 
Marion's  reports  the  reenforcement  was  so  much  more  con- 
siderable than  he  expected,  it  was  possible  they  meant  to 
raise  the  siege.  He  urged  Sumter,  if  possible,  to  secure 
prisoners,  from  whom  he  might  learn  what  troops  were  out  on 
this  expedition,  the  names  of  the  corps,  and  the  command- 
ing officers.  Captain  Rudulph,  who  commanded  the  cavalry 
of  Lee's  Legion,  he  informed  Sumter,  was  only  thirty  miles 
from  his  own  headquarters  that  evening,  having  delayed 
his  march  through  a  mistake  of  his  orders.  Ammunition 
was  getting  scarce  with  him,  but  he  would  try  to  forward 
seven  or  eight  thousand  cartridges  to  him.  General  Pick- 
ens had  arrived,  and  his  militia  would  be  in  that  evening,  and 
would  advance  to  his  support.^  Later  that  day  he  received 
another  report  from  Sumter  of  the  16th,  and  again  wrote 
him  that  he  could  only  repeat  his  wishes  to  have  the  militia 
constantly  employed  in  galling  the  enemy  as  they  advanced. 
Where  can  the  enemy,  he  asks,  have  collected  such  a  numer- 
ous cavalry  as  you  mention?  He  informed  Sumter  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  reduce  the  place  for  several  days 
to  come,  and  that  there  was  no  chance  therefore  of  effect- 
ing its  reduction  unless  they  could  first  beat  the  enemy .^ 

But  this  was  now  impossible.  The  opportunity  which 
Sumter  had  seen  and  urged  had  been  lost.  Cruger's 
courage  and  fidelity  had  enabled  his  little  force  to  neutral- 
ize for  weeks  Greene's  whole  army ;  and  Marion's  expedi- 
tion to  Georgetown,  Rudulph's  delay  under  mistaken  orders, 
and  probably  Sumter's  own  inaction,  caused  by  his  exhaus- 
tion from  his  wound,  all  united  in  preventing  a  junction 
before  his  lordship's  column,  which  might  possibly  have 
somewhat  delayed  its  march.     But  even  this  is  doubtful. 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  112. 
a  Ibid, 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  297 

Lord  Rawdon  had  now  two  thousand  excellent  troops,  part 
of  them  fresh  and  vigorous,  and  the  rest  well  seasoned  and 
disciplined.  And  though  Lee  declares  the  cavalry  raised  by 
the  Loyalists  in  Charlestown  were  but  poorly  mounted,^  it 
appears  that  on  this  march  at  least  they  had  so  well  covered 
the  movements  of  the  army  as  to  cause  Greene's  wonder 
where  so  numerous  a  cavalry  could  have  been  collected. 
So  far  from  beating  the  advancing  British,  Sumter's  men 
themselves  incurred  a  great  disaster. 

Lord  Rawdon's  direct  course  from  Orangeburgh  to  Ninety 
Six  was  in  a  northwesterly  direction,  nearly  parallel  with 
the  North  Edisto  and  Congaree  rivers.  Instead,  however, 
of  following  this  road,  he  bore  to  the  right.  This  threat- 
ened the  post  of  Granby,  Sumter's  headquarters  and  the 
depot  of  the  American  stores,  as  well  as  the  position  of  a 
detachment  recently  established  there.  General  Sumter 
therefore,  had  remained  there,  and  to  that  point  ordered  up 
his  reenforcement  of  militia  until  he  had  ascertained  that 
Lord  Rawdon  on  the  15th  had  passed  Orangeburgh.  Sum- 
ter then  moved  slowly  up  the  Congaree  and  Saluda,  so 
as  to  keep  up  his  communications  with  the  detachment 
below  and  Ninety  Six  above.  But  Lord  Rawdon,  passing 
Granby,  pushed  on,  and  having  the  shorter  route,  crossed 
the  present  county  of  Lexington,  entered  that  of  Edgefield, 
and  crossed  the  Little  Saluda  near  its  junction  with  the 
greater  river  of  that  name.  By  this  movement  Rawdon 
had  placed  himself  directly  between  Greene  and  Sumter.  Li 
his  letter  to  Sumter  of  the  17th  Greene  had  directed  that 
officer  to  detach  a  small  party  into  the  enemy's  rear  to  cut 
off  supplies  and  pick  up  stragglers.  As  soon,  therefore,  as 
Lord  Rawdon  appeared.  Colonel  Mydelton,  who  was  at 
McCord's  Ferry,  moved  out  to  harass  his  rear  and  to  cut  off 
his  parties  engaged  in  collecting  cattle.  Mydelton  yuc- 
1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  379. 


298  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ceededin  giving  considerable  trouble  in  this  way,  but  unfor- 
tunately he  allowed  himself  to  be  led  into  an  ambuscade  by 
Major  Coffin  and  his  cavalry,  and  his  party  was  so  com- 
pletely cut  to  pieces  and  dispersed  that  only  45  out  of 
150  could  be  collected.  Some  stragglers  rejoined  their 
commander,  but  many  were  killed,  and  more  too  much 
demoralized  to  return  to  the  service.^ 

The  shouts  of  the  garrison  as  Lord  Rawdon's  messenger 
rushed  into  the  gates  not  only  confirmed  Sumter's  reports 
of  his  lordship's  approach,  but  assured  Greene  that  Cru- 
ger  was  now  also  aware  of  it,  and  that  the  garrison  would 
endure  their  thirst  until  the  expected  relief  should  arrive. 
It  now  became  necessary,  therefore,  to  hazard  an  assault, 
to  meet  Rawdon,  or  to  retire.  Greene  was  disposed  to  turn 
upon  Rawdon.  But  his  regular  force  did  but  little  exceed  the 
half  of  that  of  the  relieving  army,  which,  added  to  the  partisan 
bands  of  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Pickens,  still  left  him  numer- 
ically inferior  to  the  British  general.  Compelled  to  relin- 
quish this  plan,  he  determined  to  storm  the  fort,  although 
his  works  were  yet  unfinished.  This  determination  seems 
to  have  been  influenced  largely  by  the  troops  themselves, 
who  demanded  to  be  led  to  the  assault.^ 

Orders  were  issued  to  prepare  for  storming,  and  the  hour 
of  twelve  on  the  next  day,  18th  of  June,  was  appointed 
for  the  assailing  columns  to  advance  by  signal  from  the 
centre  battery. 

On  the  left  of  the  besiegers  their  third  parallel  was  com- 
pleted, two  trenches  and  a  mine  were  nearly  let  into  the 
enemy's  ditch,  and  the  Maham  tower  was  finished.  On 
their  right  the  trenches  were  within  twenty  yards  of  the 
enemy's  ditch.     Lieutenant-Colonel  Campbell  of  the  First 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  153  ;  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  487  ; 
Sumter's  letter  to  Greene  in  Nightingale  Collection. 
^  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  375. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  299 

Virginia  Regiment,  with  a  detachment  of  the  Maryland 
and  Virginia  line,  was  charged  with  the  attack  on  the  left, 
and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Lee  with  the  Legion  infantry  and 
Kirkwood's  Dela wares  with  that  on  the  right.  Lieutenants 
Duval  of  Maryland  and  Seldon  of  Virginia  commanded 
the  forlorn  hope  of  Campbell,  and  Captain  Rudulph  of  the 
Legion  that  of  Lee.  Fascines  were  prepared  to  fill  up  the 
enemy's  ditch,  long  poles  with  iron  hooks  were  furnished 
to  pull  down  the  sand-bags,  with  every  other  requisite  to 
facilitate  the  progress  of  the  assailants.  At  eleven  o'clock 
the  third  parallel  was  manned,  and  the  sharpshooters  took 
their  station  in  the  tower.  Upon  the  signal  as  ordered,  the 
assailing  columns  entered  the  trenches.  At  the  second 
cannon,  which  was  discharged  at  the  hour  of  twelve, 
Campbell  and  Lee  rushed  to  the  assault.  Cruger,  always 
on  the  alert,  received  them  with  his  accustomed  firmness. 
His  works  were  manned  and  bayoneted  pikes  bristled 
above  the  parapet,  while  from  the  loopholes  between  the 
sand-bags  poured  an  incessant  stream  of  fire,  making  dread- 
ful havoc  among  the  assailants.  The  form  of  the  redoubt 
gave  complete  command  of  the  ditch,  and  exposed  the 
storming  party  to  a  cross  fire,  the  effects  of  which  increased 
as  the  abatis  was  removed.  Duval  and  Seldon  had  entered 
the  enemy's  ditch  at  different  points,  and  Campbell  stood 
prepared  to  support  them  in  the  rear  of  the  party,  furnished 
with  hooks  to  pull  down  the  sand-bags.  This  party  had 
also  entered  the  ditch  and  began  to  apply  the  hooks.  Un- 
covering the  parapet  now,  says  Lee,  would  have  given  us 
victory,  and  such  was  the  vigorous  support  afforded  by  the 
musketry  from  the  third  parallel,  from  the  riflemen  in  the 
tower,  and  from  the  artillery  mounted  in  battery,  that  san- 
guine expectations  of  this  happy  issue  were  universally 
indulged.  The  moment  the  bags  in  front  were  pulled 
down,  Campbell  would  have  mounted  the  parapet,  where 


300  HISTOKY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  struggle  could  not  long  have  been  maintained.  Major 
Green,  commanding  in  the  star  redoubt,  perceiving  the 
danger  to  which  he  was  exposed  if  this  lodgement  was 
effected,  determined  to  put  a  stop  to  the  assault.  Two 
parties  of  thirty  men  each,  one  under  Captain  Campbell  of 
the  New  Jersey  volunteers,  and  the  other  under  Captain 
French  of  De  Lancey's,  issued  from  the  sally  port  in  the 
rear  of  the  star,  entered  the  ditch,  and,  taking  opposite 
directions,  charged  the  Americans  who  had  made  the  lodge- 
ment with  such  impetuosity  that  they  drove  everything 
before  them  until  they  met  in  the  opposite  quarters.  The 
bayonet  being  the  only  weapon  used,  the  carnage  was  great. 
Two-thirds  of  the  Americans  who  had  entered  the  ditch 
were  killed  or  wounded.  The  few  survivors  escaped  with 
the  bookmen  to  the  trenches  where  Campbell  yet  remained. 
On  the  other  side  Rudulph  gained  the  enemy's  ditch  and, 
followed  by  the  column,  soon  opened  his  way  into  the 
stockade  fort  which  the  enemy  had  previously  evacuated, 
but  in  which  there  were  now  a  few  remaining,  who,  giving 
their  last  fire,  retreated  precipitately.  Lee  was  preparing  to 
follow  up  this  blow  by  passing  the  rivulet  entering  the 
town,  when  Greene,  recognizing  that  the  effort  to  reduce 
the  place  by  storm  could  only  succeed  at  a  sacrifice  he 
could  not  afford,  called  off  the  assailants. 

Greene's  loss  during  the  siege  was  185  killed  and 
wounded,^  the  enemy's  loss  27  killed  and  58  wounded,^ 
in  all.  Captain  Armstrong  of  the  Maryland  line  was  the 
only  American  officer  killed,  and  Lieutenant  Roney  the 
only  one  on  the  other  side. 

Greene  reluctantly  resolved  to  abandon  the  siege,  and  in 
the  night  of  the  19th  moved  off  across  the  Saluda,  having  first 
issued  orders  to  Sumter  to  move  up  within  the  fork  of  the 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  377. 

2  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  373. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  301 

Broad  and  Saluda,  and  to  form  a  junction  with  him.  The 
retreat  from  Ninety  Six  was  pressed  without  intermission  be- 
yond Bush  River,  a  distance  of  twenty-two  miles  on  the  route 
that  crosses  the  streams  at  their  lowest  fords,  in  what  is 
now  Newberry  County.  Here  Greene  halted  to  observe  the 
movements  of  the  enemy.  On  the  morning  of  the  23d 
intelligence  was  received  that  Lord  Rawdon  had  entered 
Ninety  Six  at  two  o'clock  on  the  21st,  and  the  American 
army  was  immediately  put  in  motion.  Crossing  the  Enoree, 
Tyger,  and  Broad  rivers,  it  halted  on  the  25th  at  a  place 
called  Tim's  Ordinary,  eleven  miles  beyond  Lyle's  Ford, 
on  Broad  River,  in  what  is  now  Fairfield  County,  near 
Winnsboro.  Greene's  army  thus  now  occupied  the  very 
position  from  which  Lord  Cornwallis  had  advanced  in 
January.^ 

Lord  Rawdon  did  not  move  from  Ninety  Six  until  the 
morning  of  the  24th,  believing  from  the  reports  of  deserters 
that  the  American  army  was  still  encamped  at  Bush  River. 
On  that  day,  taking  with  him  the  troops  of  the  garrison 
and  all  the  force  capable  of  sustaining  the  fatigue,  in  all 
about  two  thousand  effectives,  and  without  even  their 
knapsacks  or  a  wheel  carriage  except  his  ammunition 
wagons,  he  made  a  vigorous  push  to  overtake  the  retreating 
army.  He  did  not,  however,  extend  his  pursuit  beyond 
the   Enoree.     Washington  and  Lee  covered  the  rear  of 

1  It  was  while  Greene  was  between  the  Enoree  and  Broad  rivers  that 
he  is  alleged  to  have  sent  Miss  Emily  Geiger  with  a  despatch  to  Sumter, 
over  a  hundred  miles  away,  on  the  Wateree  Biver.  But  the  despatches 
which  passed  almost  daily  between  Greene  and  Sumter,  and  the  evidence 
of  all  contemporary  historians,  show  that  Sumter  was  never  on  the  Wat- 
eree at  any  time  that  Greene  was  west  of  the  Congaree  or  Broad  rivers, 
but  that  he  was  on  the  west  side  all  the  time  that  Greene  was,  and  that 
he  crossed  to  the  east  side  of  the  Broad  at  the  same  time  that  Greene  did, 
and  that  Emily  Geiger  could  not  have  borne  such  a  message  as  she  is 
alleged  to  have  borne. 


302  HISTORY    OF    SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Greene's  army  and  prevented  any  foraging  on  the  part  of 
the  British,  whose  newly  raised  cavalry  under  Major  Coffin 
•were  inadequate  to  oppose  the  veteran  cavalry  of  these 
officers.  Nor  were  the  British  troops  in  a  condition  to 
press  the  pursuit  after  their  recent  march  of  two  hundred 
miles  in  ten  days,  to  which  they  had  now  added  thirty- 
seven  in  a  day  and  a  half.  They  suffered  too  greatly 
under  the  intense  heat  of  the  season,  especially  the  newly 
arrived  European  soldiers,  clad  in  thick  cloth  uniforms. 
Lord  Rawdon  on  the  24th  retraced  his  steps  and  returned 
to  Ninety  Six. 

Such  was  the  disastrous  end  of  the  siege  of  Ninety  Six — 
a  post  which  would  have  been  evacuated  but  for  the  unfortu- 
nate move  against  it.  It  was,  of  course,  not  by  any  means 
impossible  that  had  Greene  followed  Sumter's  advice  and 
followed  Lord  Rawdon  to  Monck's  Corner  in  May,  and 
forced  him  to  battle  there,  he  might  have  been  beaten, 
for  indeed,  such  was  his  ill  fortune  that  he  gained  no  single 
victory  throughout  his  Southern  campaigns.  But  if  fight 
he  must,  as  he  was  obliged  afterwards  to  do  at  Eutaw,  it 
was  surely  better  to  have  offered  battle  in  open  field,  while 
his  own  troops  were  flushed  with  success,  and  his  ranks,  full 
in  consequence,  were  ready  to  be  led  on;  while  the  British, 
reduced  in  numbers  and  dispirited,  were  in  no  condition  to 
oppose  him.  The  chances  of  success  immediately  after  the 
fall  of  Orangeburgh,  Fort  Motte,  and  Granby  were  infinitely 
greater  than  when  he  was  afterwards  obliged  to  risk  them 
in  September.  The  last  two  weeks  in  May,  from  the  fall 
of  Granby  to  the  arrival  of  the  British  fleet  off  Charles- 
town  bar  on  the  2d  of  June,  presented  the  great  opportunity 
to  Greene  of  striking  a  decisive  blow  which  might  have 
ended  the  campaign  and  covered  him  with  glory.  With 
Sumter's  and  Marion's  corps  then  full  in  numbers  and 
buoyant  with  victory,  he  might  with  the  rest  of  his  Conti- 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  303 

nentals  have  risked  battle,  even  had  he  sent  Lee  with  his  ^/ 
Legion  to  assist  Pickens  in  reducing  Augusta.  Ninety  Six 
would  have  fallen  without  a  blow,  and  the  garrison  met 
in  the  open  field  rather  than  behind  fortifications  which 
proved  impregnable.  As  it  was,  by  turning  aside  to  be- 
siege the  post  at  Ninety  Six,  Greene  allowed  Cruger's 
small  garrison  to  engage  exclusively  the  attention  of  his 
Continental  army,  and  thus  to  neutralize  it  until  Lord 
Rawdon,  reenforced  by  the  newly  arrived  troops,  could 
come  to  Cruger's  relief.  The  siege  of  Ninety  Six  had 
caused  the  loss  of  all  that  had  been  gained  in  May  by 
Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee.  The  country  below  the  Con- 
garee  and  the  Saluda  was  again  in  the  possession  of  the 
British. 

But  Greene  had  his  usual  consolation.  The  miscarriage 
of  the  siege  was  somebody  else's  fault,  not  his.  The  battle 
of  Guilford  had  been  lost  by  the  North  Carolina  militia, 
that  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  by  Gunby's  mistake  and  Sumter's 
absence,  and  now  it  is  Governor  Jefferson  who  plucked 
away  his  laurels.  "  Had  the  Virginia  militia  joined  us, 
agreeable  to  orders,  success  would  have  been  complete,^'  he 
wrote  to  the  President  of  Congress,  and  adds,  "  Our  move- 
ment to  the  southward  has  been  attended  with  very  great 
advantages,  and  had  not  this  reenforcement  arrived  so  soon, 
or  had  not  the  Virginia  militia  failed  me,  the  manoeuvre 
would  have  been  crowned  with  complete  success."^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  151. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

1781 

Lord  Rawdon  had  now  driven  Greene  back  across  the 
great  rivers,  and  recovered  the  country  lately  wrested  from 
him  by  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee.  He  had  raised  the 
siege  of  Ninety  Six,  and  relieved  its  garrison  of  Northern 
Tories,  who  had  emulated  the  conduct  of  the  best  British 
troops  of  the  line.  But  could  he  hold  the  territory  which 
the  accidental  reenforcement  he  had  received  had  enabled 
him  to  recover  ?  This  question  pressed  upon  his  consider- 
ation, and  demanded  an  immediate  determination.  It  had, 
in  fact,  as  we  have  seen,  been  decided  by  him  before 
Greene's  advance  upon  Ninety  Six;  and  that  movement 
alone  had  prevented  the  evacuation  of  the  post  and  the 
consequent  abandonment  of  the  country.  Had  his  reen- 
forcements  and  Greene's  forced  retreat  altered  the  condi- 
tions of  the  situation  to  such  an  extent  as  to  change  his 
policy?  Clearly  not.  The  evacuation  of  the  post  had 
been  resolved  upon  before  Greene  had  crossed  the  Con- 
garee,  because  of  the  loss  of  his  intermediate  posts  of 
Granby,  Motte,  and  Orangeburgh.  These,  it  is  true,  were 
not  nov/  held  by  the  Americans,  but  they  were  just  as  liable 
to  recapture  if  garrisoned  again  as  they  had  been  to  the 
first  assaults  made  upon  them.  It  was  these  "little  strokes  " 
which  Greene  so  much  despised  that  had  broken  up  the 
British  line  of  communication  and  decided  Lord  Rawdon 
to  abandon  the  country.  True,  Rawdon  had  received  a 
reenforcement  of   three  regiments,  but  this  was  in  part 

304 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  305 

neutralized  by  the  loss  of  the  king's  American  Regiment, 
which,  at  the  demand  of  Sir  James  Wright,  he  had  sent  as 
a  reenforcement  to  Savannah ;  and  to  a  greater  extent  by 
tlie  loss  of  the  garrisons  captured.  If,  then,  he  should 
attempt  to  hold  this  part  of  this  province,  he  must  use  his 
new  troops  to  reestablish  the  garrisons  he  had  lost.  But 
here  another  consideration  presented  itself,  causing  him  to 
hesitate  to  call  upon  Balfour  for  more  troops  from  Charles- 
town,  and  possibly  to  doubt  if  such  call  would  be  answered 
if  made.  The  expectation  and  apprehension  of  a  French 
fleet  and  army  on  the  coast  in  order  to  cooperate  with 
Greene  and  to  put  a  final  end  to  the  war  in  this  quarter 
had  a  great  influence  on  the  operation  of  this  campaign, 
and  on  the  conduct  and  movement  of  the  commanders 
on  both  sides.^  While  this  apprehension  existed,  would 
Balfour  consent  that  the  newly  arrived  troops  should 
leave  the  town  and  be  marched  into  the  country,  out  of 
reach  in  case  the  French  should  appear  ?  This  he  could 
scarcely  expect,  unless,  indeed,  for  the  temporary  pur- 
pose of  facilitating  his  own  retreat  to  the  town.  For  this 
purpose  he  determined  to  apply  to  Balfour  at  Charles- 
town,  urging  the  expediency  of  sending  a  strong  corps  to 
Orangeburgh  as  a  provision  against  any  immediate  attempt 
upon  that  place.  The  result  of  the  application  will  pres- 
ently be  seen. 

But  however  manifest  was  the  policy  of  withdrawing 
into  closer  lines  in  a  military  point  of  view,  the  political 
aspect  of  the  question  was  most  embarrassing.  The  dis- 
tricts of  Ninety  Six  and  that  between  the  Saluda  and 
Broad  had  been  overwhelmingly  loyal  to  the  king,  and 
had  been  supported  in  their  opposition  to  the  Whigs  by 
the  garrison  at  Ninety  Six.  The  Tory  sentiment  in  this 
region  had  been  greatly  strengthened  by  Colonel  Cruger, 
1  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  504. 

VOL.  IV.  —  X 


HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

who  was  as  wise  an  administrator  as  he  was  a  gallant 
officer.  What,  then,  was  to  become  of  the  king's  friends 
in  this  region,  who  had  stood  so  loyally  to  his  cause  ?  In 
this  dilemma.  Lord  Rawdon  convened  the  principal  Tories 
of  the  region,  and  made  proposals  to  them  that,  if  they 
would  keep  together  and  undertake  the  defence  of  the 
district  against  their  fellow-countrymen,  a  small  party 
should  be  left  to  keep  them  in  countenance,  with  the 
further  encouragement  that  detachments  from  the  Con- 
garee  should  at  all  times  be  sent  to  their  support,  equiva- 
lent to  any  force  which  Greene  might  despatch  to  invade 
their  territory  ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  care  should 
be  taken  to  provide  for  the  removal  of  such  families  as 
should  prefer  to  be  settled  upon  the  abandoned  plantation 
within  the  new  frontier  which  was  now  intended  to  be 
established.  The  Loyalists  decided,  for  the  security  and 
preservation  of  their  families,  to  bring  them  away  under 
the  protection  of  the  army,  determining  also  that,  when 
settled  within  the  assigned  limits,  the  men  should  be 
embodied  in  order  to  make  incursions  into  the  abandoned 
territory.^ 

Lord  Rawdon  did  not  wait,  however,  even  for  the  determi- 
nation of  the  Loyalists  in  this  matter,  but,  leaving  Colonel 
Cruger  behind  with  much  the  greater  part  of  his  force  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  his  orders  into  execution,  on  the  29th  of 
June  he  marched,  himself,  with  eight  hundred  infantry  and 
sixty  horses,  for  the  Congaree.  As  has  been  stated,  he  had 
previously  written  to  Colonel  Balfour,  urging  the  expediency 
of  sending  a  strong  corps  to  Orangeburgh,  and  that  he  ex- 
pected to  meet  it  at  that  place.  Upon  Balfour's  applica- 
tion to  Colonel  Gould,  who  still  retained  the  independent 
command  of  the  troops  he  had  brought  with  him,  that 
officer  had  immediately  granted  a  battalion  of  his  corps  for 
1  Annual  Begister,  vol.  XXIV  (1781),  94. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  307 

that  purpose ;  and  Lord  Rawdon,  before  his  departure  from 
Ninety  Six,  had  received  advice  from  Balfour,  not  only  of 
Gould's  compliance,  but  that  the  Third  Regiment  was  under 
orders  to  arrive  at  Orangeburgh  by  a  specified  day,  and  there 
to  wait  his  instructions,  and,  as  if  to  remove  every  possi- 
bility of  doubt,  he  received  a  subsequent  letter  from  Colonel 
Alexander  Stuart,^  who  commanded  the  regiment  sent, 
informing  him  that  he  was  already  considerably  advanced 
on  his  way  to  Orangeburgh.  This  information  and  a  full 
confidence  in  the  expected  support  were  the  grounds  upon 
which  Lord  Rawdon  based  his  immediate  plan  of  operations, 
and  were  particularly  the  cause  of  his  leaving  so  great  a 
part  of  his  force  with  Colonel  Cruger  at  Ninety  Six. 
Assured  of  Colonel  Stuart's  advance,  his  lordship  de- 
spatched a  number  of  messengers  to  meet  him,  appointing 
their  junction  at  the  Congaree  on  the  3d  of  July.^ 

In  the  meanwhile  Greene  had  sent  Lee  with  his  Lesrion 
to  hover  about  the  post  of  Ninety  Six,  observing  Rawdon 's 
movements,  and  to  keep  him  informed  of  minutest  occur- 
rences. Washington,  with  his  cavalry  and  Kirkwood's  in- 
fantry, was  directed  to  move  down  between  the  Broad  and 
Wateree  —  the  present  county  of  Richland  —  to  Granby, 
and,  throwing  himself  between  that  post  and  Orangeburgh, 
to  pursue  the  same  course  as  pointed  out  to  Lee.  General 
Sumter  at  the  time  was  preparing  for  an  expedition  lower 
down  the  country,  and  ]Marion  was  instructed  to  cooperate 
with  him  in  that  quarter.^  Having  made  these  arrangements, 
Greene  recommenced  his  march,  quieting  the  apprehension 

1  In  the  American  histories  this  name  is  usually  spelled  Stewart,  but 
we  prefer  to  follow  the  English  authorities,  Tarleton,  and  Stedman's 
American  War,  in  which  it  is  spelled  Stuart.  In  the  Annual  liegister  it 
is,  however,  spelled  Stewart. 

2  Annual  Begister,  supra. 

8  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  158  ;  Greene's  letters  to  Marion  and 
Lee,  Gibbes'^  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  100-101. 


308  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

of  the  country  by  advancing  a  day's  journey  on  the  route 
to  Gran  by.  Here  he  halted,  as  well  to  ascertain  the  ulti- 
mate view  of  the  enemy  as  to  await  the  arrival  of  a  detach- 
ment of  two  hundred  North  Carolina  levies  under  Major 
John  Armstrong,  and  remained  for  two  days  at  Big  Spring 
on  Rocky  Creek,  in  the  present  Fairfield  County.  He  had 
learned  from  a  deserter  who  came  in  on  the  evening  of  the 
28th  of  June,  that  a  quantity  of  stores,  under  an  escort  of  four 
hundred  infantry  and  forty  cavalry,  was  moving  slowly  up 
the  Orangeburgh  road  for  Rawdon's  army,  not  making  more 
than  ten  miles  a  day.  This,  no  doubt,  was  the  part}^  which 
Rawdon  had  appointed  to  meet  him  on  the  3d  of  July  at 
Orangeburgh.  Lee  was  at  once  ordered  to  form  a  junction 
with  Washington  at  Ancrum's  plantation,  near  Granby,  and 
intercept  this  body.  Sumter  was  also  directed  to  detach 
Mydelton's  regiment  to  join  Washington. ^  This  last  officer, 
however,  who  had  been  pushing  his  observations  towards 
Orangeburgh,  had  fortunately  intercepted  a  letter  of  Colonel 
Stuart  informing  Rawdon  of  his  advance  towards  Orange- 
burgh, but  stating  the  impracticability  of  reaching  Granby  by 
the  3d  of  July.  Lee,  at  the  same  time,  that  is,  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  1st,  informed  him  that  Rawdon  had  marched  from 
Ninety  Six  with  less  than  half  his  force.  Greene  determined 
at  once  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  striking  Rawdon  before 
Stuart  reached  him.  The  American  army  was  put  in  motion, 
but  had  proceeded  no  farther  than  Winnsboro  by  the  3d  of 
July ;  here  it  was  stripped  of  everything  which  could  im- 
pede its  march,  and  was  left  under  the  command  of  General 
Huger  with  orders  to  press  on  to  the  Congaree,  while  Greene 
himself,  attended  by  a  small  escort  of  cavalry,  pushed  on  to 
find  Colonel  Washington  and  to  observe  more  particularly 
the  indications  by  which  his  measures  should  be  directed. 
Lord  Rawdon  appears  to  have  been  informed  of  this  hurried 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  117. 


IN   THE    REVOLUTION  309 

movement  of  Greene,  and,  at  once  apprehending  danger  to 
the  reenforcement  he  had  sent  for,  he  too  hastened  to  reach 
Granby  in  advance  of  the  American  army.  This  brought 
him  to  Granby  two  days  before  the  time  appointed,  and 
liis  appearance  there  had  no  small  effect  upon  the  issue  of 
Greene's  scheme,  for  the  seizure  of  this  post  was  all  impor- 
tant to  its  success.  Greene's  failure  to  secure  this  position 
between  Rawdon  and  his  reenforcement  was  in  some  degree 
compensated  by  a  successful  blow  struck  by  Lee  on  his  lord- 
ship's arrival  at  Granby,  but  rendered  less  important  by  the 
recall  of  Stuart,  a  knowledge  of  which  neither  party  at  the 
time  possessed. 

Colonel  Lee  had,  with  his  usual  zeal  and  activity,  obeyed 
Greene's  order  and  kept  close  watch  upon  the  move- 
ments of  the  British  army.  From  his  knowledge  of  the 
adjacent  country,  he  was  satisfied  that,  upon  his  arrival  at 
Granby,  Lord  Rawdon  would  be  compelled  to  send  out 
foraging  parties  to  the  south  of  that  place,  as  nowhere  else 
in  the  neighborhood  could  he  obtain  supplies.  Deter- 
mining to  avail  himself  of  any  opportunity  which  might 
thus  arise,  he  detached  Captain  Eggleston  of  the  cavalry  to 
proceed,  with  thirty  dragoons,  along  the  enemy's  right,  and, 
taking  with  him  Captain  James  Armstrong,  previously 
despatched  in  that  quarter  Avith  a  reconnoitring  party,  to 
make,  in  the  course  of  the  night,  a  proper  disposition  of  his 
force  for  the  contemplated  purpose.  Eggleston  immedi- 
ately joined  Armstrong,  and  placed  his  party  in  a  covered 
and  convenient  position.  As  Colonel  Lee  had  anticipated, 
a  foraging  party,  consisting  of  fifty  or  sixty  dragoons  and 
some  wagons,  soon  after  daylight  of  the  3d  of  July,  were 
discovered  approaching  the  very  farm  to  which  Eggleston 
had  directed  his  attention.  As  soon  as  the  wagons  and, 
escort  had  advanced  within  reach  of  Eggleston,  he  rushed 
upon  the  enemy,  broke  up  the  foragers,  routed  the  party. 


310  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

and  brought  off  forty-five  dragoon  prisoners,  including  a 
captain,  without  any  loss  whatsoever  to  his  party .^  This 
was  quite  a  serious  blow  to  Rawdon,  as  it  deprived  him  of 
almost  his  entire  cavalry,  and  so  rendered  him  incapable  of 
either  collecting  supplies  or  obtaining  information. 

Learning  nothing  of  Stuart,  who  had  in  fact  been  recalled 
by  Balfour  to  Charlestown  upon  some  alarm  of  French  in- 
vasion, and  had  retraced  his  steps  as  far  as  Dorchester,^ 
but  convinced  by  Lee's  appearance  of  the  approach  of  the 
American  army,  Lord  Rawdon  delayed  only  to  destroy  the 
boats  for  some  distance  down  the  river,  and  immediately 
pressed  on  to  reach  Orangeburgh.  His  route  lay  across 
Congaree  Creek,  a  branch  of  the  river  of  that  name,  at 
about  three  miles  distant,  a  broad  piece  of  water  in  some 
parts  deep,  and  enclosed  by  difficult  banks.  Lee  made 
some  opposition  to  the  crossing  of  this  stream.  He  de- 
stroyed the  bridge  and  felled  trees  to  render  the  fords 
impracticable.  But  after  a  few  ineffectual  shots  between 
the  parties  he  withdrew,  and  the  British  crossed  and  pressed 
on.  In  this  march  from  Ninety  Six  to  Orangeburgh,  more 
than  fifty  of  the  British  army  fell  dead  from  heat,  fatigue, 
and  privation.^ 

Johnson  observes  that  it  is  curious  to  follow  out  the  well- 
concerted  measures  of  the  American  commanders  to  their 
final  failure ;  that  in  common  with  the  Commander-in-chief, 
General  Greene  had  often  to  dissemble  his  feelings,  and  to 
bear  with  his  officers  because  the  service  could  not  well 
bear  their  loss.  In  this  instance,  he  states  that  neither 
Mydelton  nor  Lee  ever  joined  Washington,  and  that  Lee, 
instead  of  directing  his  views  against  Stuart,  thought 
proper  to  throw  himself  in  front  of  Rawdon,  in  prosecution 
of  a  feebl«  and  fatal  effort  to  embarrass  his  march.     As  to 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  2776  (Lee),  S80-381. 

s  Annual  Register,  vol.  XXIV  (1781),  96.  »  Ihid.,  97. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  811 

Sumter,  he  observes,  that  the  express  despatched  after  him, 
after  three  days'  search,  found  him  at  Hanging  Rock  on  the 
Catawba  in  prosecution  of  some  measure  connected  with  his 
command,  which  he  did  not  abandon,  and  which  detained 
him  until  the  8th  or  9th  of  July.  This  criticism  of  his  officers 
to  cover  the  misfortune  of  the  commander  is  scarcely  just. 
For  it  must  be  remembered  that  Lord  Rawdon's  prompt 
and  vigorous  movement  to  Granby  had  disconcerted  all  of 
Greene's  plans,  and  had  Lee  received  the  order  to  join 
Washington,  he  must  have  hesitated  to  do  so,  and  thus  to 
deprive  his  commander  of  all  information  as  to  the  enemy's 
movement,  under  an  order  which  he  knew  to  have  been 
issued  under  the  supposition  of  a  condition  of  things 
which  no  longer  existed.  He  certainly  did,  in  fact,  render 
much  more  important  services  to  Greene  in  destroying  the 
enemy's  cavalry  force  than  he  could  possibly  have  done  in 
going  in  search  of  Stuart,  who  at  that  time  had  fallen  back 
to  Dorchester.  For  Sumter,  it  must  be  said  that  he  was 
daily  in  communication  with  Greene,  and  had  informed 
him  by  letter  of  the  2d  of  the  necessity  of  his  movements,^ 
in  reply  to  which,  Greene  writes  to  him  from  his  head- 
quarters, which  were  still  at  Winnsboro,  on  the  3d  of 
July: 2  "Your  letter  of  yesterday  overtook  me  on  the 
march  for  the  Congaree.  I  doubt  not  material  advantages 
will  result  from  your  visiting  the  upper  regiments,  but  I 
fear  the  opportunity  for  striking  the  posts  at  Monck's 
corner  and  in  that  neighborhood  is  past."  So  too.  Captain 
Pierce,  A.D.C.,  writes  to  him  by  General  Huger's  direction 
as  late  as  the  Tth,^  "  No  barriers  will  be  thrown  in  your 
way  to  obstruct  the  execution  of  your  plan  &  our  best 
wishes  attend  you  for  your  success."  *     When,  therefore, 

1  Sumter's  letters,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleg- 
ton,  1899,  Appendix,  33,  37. 

«  Ibid.,  118.  8  Ibid,  121.  *  Sumter  MSS. 


312  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Greene  reached  Washington,  he  did  not  expect  to  find 
Sumter  there,  but  knew  that  he  was  busy  recruiting  his 
forces  preparatory  to  striking  the  post  at  Monck's  Cor- 
ner, which  was  in  accordance  with  his  previous  orders  to 
him  to  penetrate  lower  down  the  country.  True,  in  his 
letter  of  the  3d  from  Winnsboro,  and  in  a  second  the  same 
day  from  a  point  at  which  he  was  encamped,  having  left 
Winnsboro  that  day,  he  had  urged  Sumter  to  join  him  at 
Friday's  Ferry,  opposite  Granby,  as  he  had  just  learned 
that  Lord  Rawdon  had  reached  that  point.  And  this 
Sumter  proceeded  to  do  as  soon  as  he  had  collected  his 
force,  though  in  doing  so  he  abandoned  his  favorite  plan  of 
striking  at  the  enemy's  posts  below.  He  joined  Greene  on 
the  8th,  the  day  after  Huger  wrote  him  that  no  barriers 
would  be  thrown  to  obstruct  his  plan,  for  the  success  of 
which  the  best  wishes  of  all  attended  him. 

Washington,  in  the  meantime,  anxious  to  prosecute  the 
enterprise  against  Stuart,  despatched  a  courier  to  Marion, 
who  was  below  with  four  hundred  men,  pressing  him  to 
hasten  to  unite  in  the  undertaking.  When  Greene 
reached  Washington,  Marion  had  joined  him,  and  at  the 
head  of  these  two  corps  he  resolved  to  lead  the  enterprise 
in  person.  Passing  down  the  Orangeburgh  road  on  the  6th, 
he  succeeded  in  avoiding  Lord  Rawdon,  and  there,  watch- 
ing the  progress  of  the  British  army,  at  the  head  of  a  com- 
pany of  Washington's  cavalry,  lest  relief  should  be  pushed 
forward  to  Stuart,  he  detached  Marion  to  attack  and  seize 
this  important  convoy,  not  only  with  relief  for  Lord  Raw- 
don's  army,  but  with  the  various  supplies  necessary  to 
reestablish  the  post  at  Granby.  Hourly  communications 
were  kept  with  Marion,  and  positive  information  obtained 
that  Stuart  was  still  below  and  approaching.  Everything 
now  promised  success,  when  at  one  o'clock  on  the  morning 
of  the  8th  Marion  sallied  forth  from  his  covert  to  seize 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  313 

upon  his  prey,  but  to  his  utter  discomfiture  Stuart,  un- 
conscious of  his  danger  and  influenced  only  by  a  choice  of 
roads,  had  turned  aside  into  one  while  Marion  had  pur- 
sued another,  and  they  had  passed  each  other  in  the  night. 
On  the  morning  of  the  8th  Rawdon  and  Stuart  formed  a 
junction  at  Orangeburgh.^ 

Greene  was  greatly  disappointed  upon  his  failure  to  in- 
tercept Stuart,  but  summoning  Sumter,  Marion,  Lee,  and 
Washington  to  form  a  junction  as  soon  as  possible,  he 
resolved  to  march  upon  Orange  burgh  and  offer  the  enemy 
battle.  The  militia  under  Pickens  was  not  included  in 
this  order,  for  that  officer  was  at  this  time  employed  on  the 
important  mission  of  watching  the  motions  of  Cruger. 
Reenforced  already  by  Stuart,  if  joined  now  by  Cruger, 
Lord  Rawdon's  force  would  have  been  overwhelming,  lack- 
ing only  in  cavalry.  Colonel  Stuart,  to  his  lordship's  great 
disappointment,  having  brought  none  with  him.  But  Cru- 
ger was  approaching.2 

That  officer,  it  will  be  recollected,  had  been  left  at 
Ninety  Six  to  cover  the  retreat  of  the  Loyalists'  families. 
Whilst  waiting  their  assembling,  says  Johnson,  it  would 
have  been  happy  for  his  reputation,  and  that  of  the  British 
arms,  had  he  confined  his  efforts  to  the  demolition  of  the 
defensive  works  that  had  been  constructed  at  that  post. 
But  this  last  opportunity  of  wreaking  vengeance  on  the 
unfortunate  Whigs  could  not  be  suffered  to  pass  away.  A 
swarm  of  Tories,  supported  by  a  regular  force,  were  per- 
mitted to  carry  fire  and  sword  into  the  Long  Cane  settle- 
ment. The  ravages  sanctioned  in  this  quarter  gave 
countenance  to  the  assertion  that  orders  had  been  issued 
to  lay  the  whole  country  waste.     This  dreadful  calamity 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  162. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  163  ;  Annual  liegister,  vol.  XXIV 
(1781),  96, 


314  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

is  sometimes  justified  or  excused  by  the  necessities  which 
war  imposes ;  but  what  was  there  to  justify  it  here  ?  They 
were  abandoning  the  country,  there  was  no  army  to  be 
starved  into  a  retreat,  and  the  country  was  entirely  too 
remote  to  furnish  supplies  to  that  which  must  be  the  seat 
of  war.  There  is  but  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  the 
measure  was  one  of  revenge,  perhaps  of  plunder  or  the 
petulance  of  disappointment.  Fortunately  Pickens  and 
Clarke  were  at  hand  to  check  the  ravages,  and  reenforced 
by  the  enraged  inhabitants,  whose  smoking  dwellings  still 
stimulated  their  vengeance,  the  enemy  were  once  more 
forced  within  their  intrenchments  or  under  the  protection 
of  their  guns.  Recent  advices  from  Rawdon  of  his  increas- 
ing difficulties  hurried  on  the  evacuation  of  the  post  of 
Ninety  Six.     And  now  the  scene  was  changed. 

Cruger,  says  the  same  author,  at  the  head  of  a  cavalcade 
not  unlike  the  pictures  of  an  exodus,  commenced  his  march 
on  the  8th  of  July.  Many  had  been  the  distressing  scenes 
that  the  country  had  exhibited,  but  few  had  equalled  this. 
And  to  add  to  the  mental  and  bodily  sufferings  of  the 
miserable  Loyalists,  parties  gatliered  from  the  recently 
desolated  settlements,  and  reenforced  by  those  habitual 
plunderers  who  had  disgraced  the  American  cause,  hunted 
and  cut  off  the  small  parties  as  they  moved  towards  the 
rendezvous  appointed  on  Cruger's  line  of  march.  Nor 
were  their  sufferings  destined  to  terminate  with  this  dan- 
gerous and  distressing  journey  to  which  every  age,  sex, 
and  condition  were  exposed,  but  after  reaching  the  tract 
of  country  to  which  they  were  ordered  to  retire,  and  their 
land  of  promise,  —  the  rich  estates  of  the  banished  Whigs, 
—  they  soon  found  that  all  the  remuneration  and  protection 
promised  them  ended  in  delusion.  If  they  were  fortunate 
to  survive  the  diseases  of  the  climate,  they  were  soon  driven 
from  their  new  homes  by  the  wandering  parties  of  Whigs, 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  315 

or  perhaps  excluded  by  some  prior  possessors  who  did  not 
find  it  convenient  to  relinquish  their  hold.  At  length 
they  gathered  in  great  numbers  in  the  wretched  settlement 
called  Rawdon  Town,  in  the  suburbs  of  Charlestown, 
which  had  been  formed  by  their  predecessors,  the  Loyalist 
refugees  from  Camden,  whose  miseries  were  now  to  be 
increased  by  their  coming.  Here  many  perished.  Some 
who  had  brought  with  them  their  slaves  removed  to  some 
of  the  British  settlements  in  the  West  Indies,  where  their 
descendants  still  live.  Others,  resolved  to  brave  the  dan- 
gers of  returning  to  their  native  homes,  secretly  stole  back 
and  finally  cast  themselves  on  the  clemency  of  their  neigh- 
bors. None,  it  is  said,  who  had  not  rendered  themselves 
infamous  by  their  crimes,  were  repulsed.  In  Pickens  they 
found  a  zealous  and  benevolent  protector.^ 

Though  encumbered  with  this  caravan,  old  men,  women, 
and  children,  laden  witli  household  goods,  besides  the  ordi- 
nary impediments  of  an  army,  Cruger,  nevertheless,  pressed 
forward  with  astonishing  celerity,  fear  of  being  left  behind 
and  losing  his  protection  aiding  his  efforts  to  hasten  his 
convoy  on  the  march.  Lord  Rawdon  had  written,  urging 
his  utmost  speed,  and  by  travelling  by  moonlight  he  was 
enabled  to  mitigate  the  sufferings  attendant  upon  marching 
over  barren  sands  in  such  a  climate  at  such  a  season.  He 
approached  by  a  route  which  led  between  the  great  forks 
of  the  Edisto,  crossing  into  that  place,  at  a  bridge  to  the 
west  of  the  town,  thrown  across  the  northern  branch  of  the 
river.  For  a  great  distance  above  and  below  that  point 
the  river  was  impassable,  so  that  he  proceeded  in  security 
from  attack  by  the  troops  to  its  east.  Pickens,  with  all 
his  exertions,  could  not  collect  together  a  force  sufficient 
to  retard  his  march.  As  soon  as  Cruger  had  reached  a 
point  so  far  down  the  fork  as  to  relieve  him  from  fear  for 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  163-164. 


316  HISTOKY    OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

tlie  safety  of  the  refugees,  he  left  them  under  the  protection 
of  their  own  mounted  men,  with  instructions  to  pursue 
their  journey  down  the  southwest  side  of  the  Edisto,  so 
as  to  keep  that  river  between  them  and  the  American 
parties. 

On  the  10th  of  July,  General  Greene,  having  been 
joined  by  Sumter  and  all  his  different  detachments,  moved 
within  four  miles  of  Orangeburgh,  and  offered  the  enemy 
battle.  The  ground  he  chose  is  on  the  north  side  of 
the  creek  which  crosses  the  old  Orangeburgh  road  to 
Granby,  four  miles  from  the  town.  The  force  he  had 
with  him  amounted  to  about  two  thousand,  but  there  were 
scarcely  eight  hundred  regular  infantry.  Lord  Rawdon's 
force  after  the  junction  with  Stuart  was  estimated  at  fif- 
teen hundred,  all  disciplined  men.  In  artillery  the  two 
armies  were  nearly  equal ;  in  cavalry  the  preponderance 
was  greatly  in  favor  of  the  Americans.  The  advantages 
upon  the  whole  were  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  latter, 
unless  Cruger  should  rejoin  Lord  Rawdon  before  the  issue 
of  the  battle.  But  it  was  known  that  Cruger  was  approach- 
ing, and  his  lordship  had  taken  possession  of  the  court- 
house, a  strong  brick  building  of  two  stories,  not  inferior 
in  the  estimation  of  Greene  to  a  strong  redoubt,  with  some 
other  buildings  commanding  his  approach,  and  securing 
his  retreat  over  the  bridge  in  case  of  misfortune.^ 

If,  therefore,  an  attack  was  to  be  made,  it  must  be  made 
at  once,  before  Cruger  arrived.  Recognizing  this.  General 
Greene  reconnoitred  the  position  in  person  at  the  head 
of  cavalry,  and  reluctantly  concluded  that  an  attack  was 
injudicious.  In  this  view  Lee  asserts  that  some  of  his 
officers,  in  whose  opinions  he  properly  confided,  did  not 
concur.     They  advised  that  an  attempt  should  be  made.^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  166. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  385. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  317 

But  Greene  adhered  to  his  opmion,  and  having  offered 
battle  for  two  days,  he  moved  off  with  his  infantry  on  the 
night  of  the  13th,  and,  crossing  the  river,  retired  to  the 
High  Hills  of  Santee. 

Sumter  had  abandoned  the  repetition  of  his  favorite 
plan  of  operations,  the  striking  at  the  posts  of  the  enemy 
upon  the  line  of  his  communications  in  his  rear,  and  had  at 
Greene's  call  joined  him  before  Orangeburgh;  and  when  it  is 
known  that  some  of  Greene's  officers  were  opposed  to  retir- 
ing from  Lord  Rawdon's  front  without  striking  a  blow,  it 
may  be  safely  assumed  that  Sumter  was  one  of  those  who 
were  for  making  the  attempt.  But  now  that  that  was 
given  up,  Greene  turned  over  all  the  mounted  men  to  him, 
and  gave  him  leave  to  start  upon  that  memorable  incursion 
into  the  lower  country  which  drove  the  enemy  in  all 
quarters  into  Charlestown,  and  for  a  while  prostrated  every 
appearance  of  Royal  power  beyond  its  limits. 

There  had  been  great  activity  as  well  in  other  parts  of  the 
State.  While  Marion  was  before  Georgetown  he  had  de- 
tached Colonel  Peter  Horry  with  a  force  against  the  Loyal- 
ists upon  the  Pee  Dee.  The  repeated  struggles  between  the 
contending  parties  in  that  country,  also,  had  now  nearly 
reduced  it  to  desolation,  and  Colonel  Horry  was  sent  to 
endeavor  in  some  way  to  put  an  end  to  the  murderous 
strife.  As  he  was  authorized  to  do.  Colonel  Horry,  on  the 
part  of  General  Marion,  on  the  17th  of  June,  negotiated  a 
treaty  with  Major  Gainey,  who  styled  himself  "  commanding 
officer  of  the  Tories  or  king's  subjects,  inhabitants  lying 
between  the  great  Pee  Dee  River  and  North  Carolina,"  by 
which  it  was  agreed  that  from  that  time  all  hostilities  on 
both  sides  should  cease ;  that  both  parties  should  have 
free  intercourse  to  traffic  together  unmolested;  that  in 
case  of  injuries  committed  on  persons  or  property  on  either 
side,  the  captain  or  officer  commanding  the  injured  party 


318  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAEOLINA 

should  make  complaint  to  the  officer  commanding  the 
wrong-doer,  whereupon  a  jury  composed  of  two  Whigs  and 
two  Tories,  with  an  officer  from  the  side  of  the  com- 
plainant, should  be  called  on  to  sit  as  a  court-martial,  and 
determine  the  matter  between  them  and  to  inflict  such 
punishment  as  should  appear  reasonable  and  just;  that 
property  not  taken  in  action  (but  plundered),  on  being 
proven  by  either  party,  should  be  restored.^  This  treaty 
afforded  some  pacification  to  the  country,  but  was  not 
strictly  complied  with  until  Marion,  ten  months  after, 
found  leisure  to  impose  another,  more  humiliating,  upon 
Gainey  and  his  followers.^ 

A  few  days  after  General  Marion  had  forced  the  evacua- 
tion of  Georgetown,  i.e,  on  the  10th  of  August,  one  Man- 
son,  an  inhabitant  of  the  country,  who  had  joined  the 
British,  appeared  in  an  armed  vessel  before  the  town,  and 
demanded  permission  to  land  his  men.  General  Clarion,  it 
will  be  remembered,  had  been  recalled  to  join  Greene,  and 
there  was  only  a  small  party  of  militia  left  in  the  place. 
These  refusing  the  permission  asked,  Manson  sent  a  few 
of  his  men  ashore  under  cover  of  his  guns,  and  set  fire  to 
some  of  the  houses  next  to  the  water.  He  then  directed 
his  crew  to  fire  on  the  burning  houses  in  such  a  direction 
as  prevented  the  inhabitants  from  either  extinguishing  the 
flames  or  removing  their  property.  Forty-two  houses  in 
this  flourishing  town  were  on  this  occasion  reduced  to 
ashes.^ 

In  the  meanwhile,  however.  Colonel  Harden  had  not 
been  idle  in  the  Low-Country,  and  had  established  a  camp 
at  the  Horse  Shoe  on  the  Ashepoo  River.  Here  Hayne 
joined  him,  having  at  length  yielded  to  the  wishes  of  those 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  98. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  122  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  128. 
•  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  236. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  319 

of  his  neighbors  who  had  revolted  from  the  British  au- 
thority, and  upon  their  petition  he  had  been  appointed  by 
Pickens  to  the  command  of  their  regiment.  Having  com- 
mitted himself  to  the  cause  and  resumed  his  arms,  Hayne 
at  once  entered  the  field  with  boldness,  enterprise,  and 
vigor.  Taking  with  him  a  small  party  of  mounted  men, 
he  dashed  into  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Charlestown,  pene- 
trating to  within  five  miles  of  the  town,  and  on  Thursday 
night,  the  5th  of  July,  he  there  surrounded  the  house  oc- 
cupied by  General  Andrew  Williamson,  who,  when  Pickens 
took  the  field  the  fall  before,  had  returned  from  Ninety 
Six,  then  to  become  the  scene  of  struggle,  and  had  gone  to 
the  British  in  Charlestown.  Here  he  was  living,  as  he  no 
doubt  supposed,  in  security,  away  from  the  danger  of  in- 
roads by  Clarke  or  McCall,  or  any  other  of  the  partisan 
bands  of  his  former  party.  But  he  had  not  counted  upon 
Harden  and  his  followers,  still  less  upon  Hayne,  who,  like 
himself,  had  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the  struggle  since 
the  capitulation  of  the  city.  He  was  seized  in  bed,  and, 
without  allowing  him  time  even  to  put  on  his  clothes,  he 
was  carried  away  a  prisoner.  Great  indignation  and  mor- 
tification was  excited  in  the  British  lines  when  they  learned 
that  Williamson  had  been  thus  snatched  away  from  their 
protection  under  their  very  guns.  The  honor  of  the 
British  army,  they  felt,  demanded  his  rescue,  and  Major 
Fraser,  with  ninety  dragoons,  was  detached  next  day  in 
pursuit.  After  a  circuitous  march  of  more  than  seventy 
miles  through  the  woods,  with  the  most  profound  secrecy, 
on  Sunday  morning,  the  8th,  Major  Fraser  surprised  the 
camp  at  Horse  Shoe,  to  which  Colonel  Hayne  had  re- 
treated with  his  prisoner.  The  British  slew  fourteen  of 
the  party  on  the  spot  and  wounded  several  others.  Colonel 
Hayne  was  taken  prisoner,  Lieutenant- Colonel  McLauch- 
lin   was   killed,   and   his   brother,    Captain  McLauchlan, 


320  HISTORY   OF    SOUTH   CAROLINA 

dangerously  wounded.     The  rest  of  the  party  were  dis- 
persed.i 

The  circumstances  of  the  capture  of  Colonel  Hayne  are 
interesting  not  only  because  of  its  tragic  end.  As  has  been 
intimated,  Colonel  Hayne  was  fond  of  horses,  and,  like 
many  of  the  gentlemen  in  the  State,  had  a  stock  of  thor- 
oughbred animals.  In  this  disastrous  expedition  he  was 
mounted  on  a  very  fine  horse  of  his  own  breeding  called 
King  Herod;  but  the  animal,  during  his  master's  inac- 
tivity, had  become  too  fat  and  heavy  for  great  exertion, 
and  in  this  raid  had  been  foundered.  Upon  his  return 
Colonel  Hayne,  deeming  himself  secure,  with  Mr.  Charles 
Glover  and  a  few  followers,  had  turned  into  the  plantation 
of  Mrs.  Ford,  about  four  miles  beyond  Parker's  Ferry 
across  the  Edisto;  the  rest  of  his  party,  apparently,  pro- 
ceeding to  the  camp  at  Horse  Shoe  under  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  McLauchlan.  While  resting  here,  on  Sunday 
morning,  a  company  of  British  cavalry  was  seen  galloping 
up  the  avenue.  Colonel  Hayne  endeavored  to  escape  by 
crossing  the  rice  fields  at  the  back  of  the  plantation,  but 
Captain  Campbell,  who  commanded  the  company  of  cav- 
alry, saw  and  pursued  him.  Mr.  Glover  and  most  of  the 
party  escaped.  Colonel  Hayne  soon  found  that  his  horse 
was  giving  out,  and  coming  to  a  fence,  the  horse  balked ; 
whereupon,  instead  of  pressing  him  to  take  the  leap,  he 
dismounted  and  took  down  the  fence,  and  thus  facilitated 
the  crossing  of  his  pursuers.  Captain  Campbell,  of  Major 
Eraser's  party,  seeing  this,  knew  his  success  was  sure,  and 
steadily  gained  on  his  flying  foe.  Shortly  after,  in  leaping 
a  ditch,  the  side  of  it  caved.  Colonel  Hayne's  horse  fell, 
and  he  was  captured.  It  is  said  that  Captain  Campbell  — 
who  was  known  in  the  garrison  and  town  as  "  Mad  Archy," 
and  who  was  himself  to  fall  before  the  end  of  the  war  —  was 
1  The  Royal  Gazette,  July  11,  1781. 


IN   TFIE   REVOLUTION  321 

very  indignant  at  the  ultimate  fate  of  his  captive,  and  de- 
clared that  if  he  had  thought  such  would  have  been  his 
end,  he  would  have  killed  Hayne  in  the  pursuit,  with  his 
own  hand,  that  he  at  least  might  have  died  the  death  of  a 

soldier.^ 

1  Johnson's  Traditions,  361,  362. 


VOL.  IV.  — Y 


CHAPTER  XIV 

1781 

In  the  expedition  which  Sumter  had  planned  and  which 
he  was  now  allowed  by  Greene  to  undertake  against  the 
posts  in  the  rear  of  Lord  Rawdon,  and  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Charlestown  itself,  he  had  under  his  command,  besides 
his  own  brigade,  that  of  Marion,  and  the  Legion  of 
Lee,  with  a  detachment  of  artillery  of  one  piece.  In  his 
own  brigade  he  had  his  old  comrades  of  Hanging  Rock, 
Fishdam,  and  Blackstock  —  Taylor,  Lacey,  Mydelton,  and 
Henry  Hampton,  with  whom  he  had  first  checked  and 
turned  back  the  tide  of  British  conquest,  and  who  were 
still  his  devoted  followers.  To  these  were  now  added  two 
other  Hamptons,  Wade  and  Richard.  With  Marion  were 
the  heroes  of  the  Pee  Dee,  Peter  Horry,  Maham,  and 
Baxter,  the  leaders  under  him  in  many  brilliant  affairs. 
The  command  thus  consisted  of  all  the  State  troops,  with 
the  exception  of  Pickens's  brigade,  which  was  still  hovering 
in  Cruger's  rear,  and  Harden's  small  party,  ranging  upon 
the  Ashepoo  and  Combahee.  These  State  troops  were  not 
regulars,  but  they  were  now  veterans,  who  had  seen  more 
actual  service  and  fought  more  battles  than  probably  any 
Continental  troops  in  the  service,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Legion,  which  now  accompanied  them.  It  was  a  splen- 
did body  of  men,  most  of  whom  were  volunteers,  though 
veterans,  fighting  purely  for  patriotism  and  not  for  pay. 
The  best  of  horsemen,  unerring  shots,  and  well  disciplined 
in  their  rude  way,  they  were  most  excellently  fitted,  alike 

322 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  323 

by  character  and  experience,  for  the  service  upon  which 
they  now  entered.  With  such  a  body  of  men  Sumter  had 
every  reason  to  expect  the  most  substantial  results.  He 
had  even  enlisted  some  enthusiasm  upon  the  part  of  Greene 
in  the  prospect  of  its  success. 

And  Sumter  did  accomplish  much.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  he  shook  the  fabric  of  the  Royal  au- 
thority to  an  extent  which  caused  greater  alarm  than  had 
yet  been  experienced,  and  demonstrated  to  a  greater  de- 
gree than  had  yet  been  done  the  impracticability  of  the 
British  possession  of  the  State.  But  the  expedition,  nev- 
ertheless, did  not  accomplish  what  it  should  have  done. 
Had  it  succeeded,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  battle  of 
Eutaw  would  have  been  fought. 

It  is  not  an  agreeable  task  to  a  historian  of  the  State  to 
dwell  upon  the  foibles  of  her  great  men,  but  the  truth  of 
history  as  it  affects  the  current  of  events  requires  the  ob- 
servation, which  may  not  have  escaped  the  reader,  that 
there  had  been  a  persistent  and  growing  jealousy  between 
the  three  great  leaders,  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee.  Lee's 
dislike  of  Sumter  was  open  and  avowed,  and  most  improp- 
erly encouraged  by  Greene  himself  in  their  private  corre- 
spondence. Indeed,  notv/ithstanding  the  expressions  to 
Sumter  personally  of  the  greatest  confidence  in  and  reli- 
ance upon  his  wisdom  and  conduct,  it  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  Greene  himself  depreciated  Sumter's  charac- 
ter quite  as  much  as  did  Lee.  If  we  are  to  accept  Lee's 
own  account  of  this  expedition,  he  studiously  ignored,  not 
only  Sumter's  command,  but  even  his  presence.  This, 
however,  was  not  altogether  unnatural.  Sumter's  commis- 
sion, though  superior  to  that  of  Lee  by  two  grades,  was 
but  that  of  the  State ;  while  Lee's  was  from  Congress,  and 
his  command  regulars,  or  Continentals,  as  they  wer©  called. 
On  the  other  hand,  Lee  should  have  remembered  that  not 


324  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

only  was  Sumter  mucli  older  than  himself,  not  only  that 
he  had  been  fighting  the  French  and  tlie  Indians  before 
Lee  was  born,i  j^^^  ^j^r^l^  j^g  ^qq  j^o^j  been  a  Continental 
officer,  and  as  such  had  greatly  outranked  him.  Lee  had 
been  restless  under  the  command  of  Marion  or  Pickens, 
and  was  still  less  willing  to  serve  under  Sumter. 

Had  jealousy  only  existed  on  the  part  of  Lee  to  Sumter, 
it  would  not  have  been  so  unfortunate  as  that  it  should 
also  be  entertained  by  Marion  as  well.  But  this  cannot 
be  doubted.  Marion's  letters  all  disclose  an  impatience  of 
Sumter's  control,  and  it  will  be  recollected  that  during 
Greene's  absence  from  the  State,  while  Sumter  was  exer- 
cising superior  command  under  the  direct  and  explicit 
orders  of  Governor  Rutledge,  communicated  directly  to 
Marion  himself,  Sumter  in  vain  appealed  to  Marion,  if  not 
for  obedience,  at  least  for  cooperation.  It  cannot,  how- 
ever, escape  the  observation  of  even  a  panegyrist  of  the 
great  leader  that  it  was  the  misfortune  of  Sumter  to  incur 
in  succession  the  hostility  of  Morgan,  Greene,  and  Lee,  as 
well  as  the  want  of  cordiality  upon  the  part  of  Marion. 
There  may  then  have  been  something  in  Sumter's  manner, 
if  not  in  his  conduct,  which  failed  to  conciliate  those  with 
whom  he  was  called  upon  to  act.  And  yet,  in  the  corre- 
spondence between  Greene  and  Sumter,  now  made  public, 
we  look  in  vain  for  the  slightest  want  of  cordiality  and 
respect  on  the  part  of  Sumter  ;  instead,  we  find  the  most 
constant  attention  to  Greene's  wishes,  and  an  entire  absence 
of  even  a  suspicion  of  the  hostile  feeling  we  now  know  to 
have  been  early  entertained  by  Greene  in  regard  to  him. 
Nor  must  the  devoted  adherence  of  those  with  whom  he  en- 
tered the  service  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  struggle  be  for- 
gotten.   It  is  proper  also  to  observe  that  when  Sumter  first 

1  Sumter  at  this  time  was  forty-five  years  of  age,  Lee  was  but  twenty- 
five. 


IN  THE  BEVOLtTTlON  325 

came  in  communication  with  Greene  and  Morgan  he  was 
an  ill  man,  suffering  intensely  from  his  wound  received 
at  Blackstock ;  that  he  was  little  better  when  leading  his 
expedition  to  Granby  and  Orangeburgh  in  February,  being 
scarcely  able  to  write  for  pain,  and  yet  in  his  saddle  day 
and  night ;  and  that  but  three  weeks  before  he  started  upon 
this  expedition.  Colonel  Polk,  who  had  just  been  with 
him,  informed  Greene  that  his  health  was  worse  and  his 
wound  more  troublesome.  Probably  Sumter  was  not  in 
a  physical  condition  to  have  undertaken  this  expedition. 
But  who  besides  himself  could  have  led  it? 

When  Colonel  Stuart  resumed  his  advance  to  join  Lord 
Rawdon  with  the  Third  Regiment,  or  "  Buffs,"  as  they  were 
called,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Coates  was  sent  in  command  of 
his  regiment,  the  Nineteenth,  and  a  body  of  mounted  infantry 
of  the  South  Carolina  Rangers  of  150,  with  one  piece  of  artil- 
lery, to  the  post  at  Monck's  Corner.  This  post,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, is  about  forty  miles  from  Charlestown,  little  more 
than  a  half-mile  to  the  west  of  the  western  branch  of  Cooper 
River,  near  its  source, — the  point  at  which  the  Santee  Canal 
was  subsequently  made  to  enter  it, — and  near,  also,  to  Biggin 
Church,  in  which  a  large  amount  of  supplies  were  stored, 
about  the  same  distance  from  the  river  on  the  eastern  side. 
The  direct  road  from  Monck's  Corner  to  Charlestown  ran 
some  twenty  miles  through  the  pine  woods,  until  it  met, 
at  the  Eighteen  Mile  House,  the  road  from  Dorchester; 
then,  crossing  the  Goose  Creek  bridge,  a  mile  or  two  below, 
it  continued,  passing  the  Quarter  House,  situated  at  the 
commencement  of  the  peninsula  of  Charlestown  Neck,  five 
miles,  to  the  gates  of  the  town.  There  was,  however, 
another  road,  much  travelled,  which  lay  to  the  east  of 
the  western  branch  of  Cooper  River,  which,  after  passing 
Biggin  Church,  crossed  Fair  Forest  Swamp,  another 
branch   of  the  Cooper  River,  at  Wadboo  bridge,  at   the 


326  HISTOHY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

plantation  belonging  to  Mr.  J.  N.  Colleton,  from  which  point 
there  was  a  choice  of  two  routes :  one,  keeping  close  to  the 
river,  passed  Childsbury  Church  and  crossed  the  eastern 
branch  at  Bonneau's  Ferry ;  the  other,  turning  still  farther 
to  the  east,  crossed  the  eastern  branch  of  Cooper  River 
much  higher  up,  at  Quinby  bridge,  at  Colonel  Shubrick's 
plantation.  Both  of  these  roads  passed  through  St.  Thomas' 
Parish  and  ended  at  Hobcaw,  on  the  river,  nearly  four  miles 
from  the  town,  the  point,  it  will  be  remembered,  at  which 
communication  was  so  long  maintained  during  the  siege  of 
the  city.  There  was  also  a  British  post  at  Dorchester,  and 
an  outpost  and  guard  at  the  Quarter  House.  This  latter 
place,  five  miles  from  the  town,  was  quite  a  resort  for  the 
inhabitants  upon  their  pleasure  drives,  and  for  social  par- 
ties—  a  custom  kept  up  during  the  occupation  of  the  town 
by  the  British.  It  was  upon  these  posts,  thus  situated  and 
garrisoned,  that  Sumter  was  now  about  to  raid. 

In  a  letter  to  him  on  this  occasion,  written  on  the  14th 
of  July,  General  Greene  advised  him  "that  by  a  letter 
from  General  Pickens,  he  finds  that  Cruger  must  have 
formed  a  junction  with  Lord  Rawdon  the  evening  before  ; " 
therefore,  he  says,  "  there  is  no  time  to  be  lost ;  push  your 
operations  night  and  day;  keep  a  party  to  watch  the 
enemy's  motions  at  Orangeburgh  as  they  move  down. 
Should  they  move  in  any  other  direction,  I  will  advise 
you.  Keep  Colonel  Lee  and  General  Marion  advised  of  all 
matters  from  above,  and  tell  Colonel  Lee  to  thunder  even 
at  the  gates  of  Charles  town.  I  have  high  expectations 
from  their  force  and  enterprise.  Nothing  can  deprive  you 
of  complete  success  but  the  want  of  time.  Do  not  neglect 
to  have  your  boats  in  readiness  for  crossing  your  artillery 
over  San  tee,  should  it  be  necessary."  ^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  166.  (This  letter  is  not  in  the 
Sumter  MSS.) 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  327 

At  the  date  of  tbis  letter  General  Sumter's  detachments 
were  sweeping  by  every  road  that  led  direct  to  Charles- 
town,  whilst  he,  with  the  main  body,  was  pursuing  the 
Congaree  road  leading  down  the  south  of  that  river  and 
the  east  of  the  Cooper,  towards  Monck's  Corner  and  Biggin 
Church.  To  Colonel  Lee,  with  his  legion,  was  assigned 
the  service  of  carrying  Dorchester,  and  then  pressing  on  to 
carry  terror  to  the  gates  of  Charlestown,  as  Greene  had 
directed.  Colonel  Wade  Hampton,  at  the  head  of  a  de- 
tachment of  Sumter's  cavalry,  was  ordered  to  cooperate 
with  Lee,  whilst  Colonel  Henry  Hampton  seized  and  held 
the  bridge  at  Four  Holes  Creek,  a  branch  of  the  Edisto,  to 
watch  the  enemy's  motions  from  Orangeburgh,  and  to  guard 
that  pass,  should  Rawdon  return.  'But  as  it  was  expected 
that  Dorchester  would  offer  some  resistance,  Henry 
Hampton,  after  posting  a  party  at  the  bridge,  had  orders 
to  proceed  on  and  support  Lee  in  the  attack  on  that  post. 
Colonel  Wade  Hampton,  also  acting  in  concert  with  Lee, 
passed  on  east  of  Dorchester,  by  the  Wassamasaw  Road,  to 
Goose  Creek  bridge,  thereby  cutting  off  the  communica- 
tion between  Dorchester  and  Monck's  Corner,  and  between 
the  latter  place  and  Charlestown  by  the  direct  route.  A 
detachment  of  Marion's  men,  under  Colonel  Maham,  pass- 
ing the  head  of  Cooper  River,  penetrated  below  to  the 
eastward  of  Biggin  Church  and  Fair  Forest  Swamp,  and 
seized  the  Wadboo  bridge  over  that  creek,  which  he  was 
directed  to  destroy,  and  thus  cut  off  the  retreat  of  the  gar- 
rison over  that  route.  Thus  admirably  were  the  plans  laid 
for  this  incursion,  and  the  movements  begun  with  prompt- 
ness and  zeal. 

Contrary  to  expectation.  Colonel  Lee  encountered  no 
resistance  at  Dorchester.  The  garrison  at  the  time  had 
been  greatly  reduced  by  the  draft  made  on  it  by  Stuart, 
and  recently  by  a  very  serious  mutiny,  in  which  it  was  said 


328  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

many  were  killed  and  wounded.  The  sudden  appearance 
of  Wade  Hampton  at  Goose  Creek  bridge  seems  to  have 
alarmed  the  garrison  of  Dorchester,  and  in  their  then  de- 
moralized condition  caused  the  post  to  be  abandoned. 
But  Colonel  Lee  arrived  in  time  to  seize  a  number  of 
horses,  variously  estimated  at  from  fifty  to  two  hundred, 
and  four  wagons,  three  of  which  were  empty,  but  the  fourth 
contained  a  valuable  supply  of  fixed  ammunition. 

Whilst  Lee  was  securing  and  sending  off  his  prize. 
Wade  Hampton's  patience,  it  seems,  became  exhausted 
at  his  post  at  Goose  Creek  bridge,  and  hearing  nothing 
from  the  former,  and  fearing  that  the  opportunity  of 
striking  would  be  lost  by  the  alarm  that  the  knowledge 
of  his  appearance  would  occasion,  or  perhaps,  as  Johnson 
observes,  apprehending  that  Lee  meant  to  appropriate  to 
himself  the  glory  of  the  dash  into  the  vicinity  of  the  town, 
on  Sunday  morning,  the  15th,  he  moved  rapidly  down  the 
road,  and,  reaching  the  church  at  the  time  of  service,  he 
found  a  large  congregation  there,  whom  he  surrounded 
and  made  several  prisoners,  whom  he  paroled,  capturing 
also  a  number  of  horses.^  About  two  o'clock.  Captain  Read, 
who  commanded  Hampton's  vanguard,  reached  the  Quarter 
House,  where  he  encountered  a  patrol  of  twelve  of  the 
Royal  South  Carolina  Dragoons,  under  Lieutenant  Waugh, 
who  had  just  mounted  and  were  setting  out  to  reconnoitre. 
These  Read  immediately  charged  and  made  prisoners. 
Captain  Wright  of  Wassamassaw  was  cut  down  in  the 
scuffle  by  Lieutenant  Waugh,  who  himself  was  also  killed. 
The  British  claimed  that  Waugh  was  shot  after  he  sur- 
rendered.^ Upon  Hampton's  approach,  the  guard  posted  at 
this  place,  after  exhibiting  themselves  on  the  advanced  re- 

1  The  Boyal  Gazette^  July  18,  1781,  speaks  of  this  raid  as  having  been 
commanded  by  Richard  Hampton,  but  it  was  by  Wade  Hampton. 

2  Ibid. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  329 

doubts,  surrendered.  Several  Loyalists,  gentlemen  of  the 
town,  were  spending  the  morning  at  the  Quarter  House, 
some  of  whom  were  taken  and  paroled,  and  some  escaped. 
But  poor  William  Trusler,  the  butcher,  who  had  been  one 
of  Gadsden's  Liberty  Tree  partj^  and  whose  meddling  with 
politics  had  so  offended  William  Henry  Drayton,^  and  who 
had,  like  Drayton,  changed  sides,  but,  reversing  the  example, 
was  now  a  good  Tory,  in  attempting  to  make  his  escape 
was  shot.2  Hampton's  party  retired,  carrying  off  with  them 
fifty  prisoners,  among  whom  were  several  officers.  The 
news  of  this  inroad  as  it  reached  the  town  created  the 
greatest  alarm  and  confusion.  The  bells  were  rung,  the 
alarm  guns  were  fired,  and  the  whole  city  was  under  arms.^ 
If  Hampton,  determined  that  Lee  should  not  get  ahead 
of  Sumter's  cavalry  on  this  occasion,  as  he  had  at  Fort 
Motte  and  Granby,  anticipated  that  officer's  course,  the 
latter,  as  an  author,  has  avenged  himself  for  the  opportunity 
thus  snatched  from  him ;  for  in  his  account  of  these  trans- 
actions, which  have  been  recorded  and  preserved  by  John- 
son, and  mentioned  in  The  Royal  G-azette,  he  speaks  of 
Hampton's  success  as  trivial,  and  without  any  allusion 
whatsoever  to  Hampton's  surprise  and  temporary  posses- 
sion of  the  post  at  the  Quarter  House,  he  states  that  a 
party  of  the  Legion  horse  was  pushed  down  below  the 
Quarter  House,  on  the  Neck,  from  the  confidence  that  in 
a  place  so  near  Charlestown  an  advantageous  stroke  might 
be  made;  but  that  it  so  happened,  he  says,  that  on  that  day 
none  of  the  usual  visits  to  the  Quarter  House  took  place, 
nor  was  even  a  solitary  officer  picked  up  in  their  customary 
morning  rides.* 

1  History  of  So.  Ca.  Under  Boy.  Gov.  (McCrady),  591,  651,  656,  752. 

2  The  Royal  Gazette.,  supra;  Johnson's  Traditions,  33. 

3  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  167,  168. 
*  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  357. 


330  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

This  movement  of  Colonel  Lee's  was  made  the  day  after 
Hampton's  attack  upon  the  place.  Is  it  possible  that 
Colonel  Lee  did  not  know  this,  nor  understand  the  cause 
of  a  desertion  of  a  place  usually  not  only  well  guarded,  but 
full  of  life  ?  The  two  parties,  Lee's  and  Hampton's,  after 
this  united  and  returned  to  join  Sumter,  as  Johnson  sug- 
gests, probably  in  no  very  good  humor  with  each  other. 

It  is  not  unworthy  of  observation,  in  passing,  that  the 
two  blows  which  had  been  struck  the  nearest  to  the  town 
since  its  fall — indeed  under  its  very  guns — had  each  been 
delivered  by  one  who  was  fighting,  it  may  be  said,  in  the 
language  of  the  times,  truly,  if  figuratively,  with  a  halter 
around  his  neck ;  for  Hayne  and  Hampton  had  taken  their 
lives  in  their  hands  and  were  fighting  without  hope  of  quar- 
ter if  taken.     This  truth  Hayne  was  soon  to  experience. 

The  first  cause  of  the  partial  failure  of  the  expedition  so 
auspiciously  begun  is  to  be  found  in  an  unfortunate  occur- 
rence which  drew  Sumter's  attention  away  from  the  main 
objects,  and  occasioned  a  loss  of  that  precious  time  of 
which  Greene  had  warned  him,  and  on  which  no  doubt  he 
fully  appreciated  that  his  success  must  depend.  On  his 
march  he  received  intelligence  that  the  enemy  had  ap- 
peared in  force  at  Murray's  —  that  afterwards  known  as 
Gourdin's —  Ferry,  across  the  Santee.  This  lay  to  the  left 
of  his  line  of  march,  but  he  thought  it  advisable  to  send 
off  a  strong  detachment  of  three  hundred  men  to  strike  at 
this  hostile  party.  The  intelligence  was  erroneous;  nor 
can  it  be  understood  from  whence  Sumter  could  have  sup- 
posed any  formidable  body  could  have  been  drawn  in  that 
quarter.  There  certainly  were  no  regular  British  forces  in 
what  is  now  Williamsburg  County  at  this  time.  But,  how- 
ever it  was,  this  action  caused  delay,  as  Sumter  considered 
himself  too  weak  in  the  absence  of  his  detachments  to 
approach  the  enemy  at  Monck's  Corner,  within  striking 


IN   THE  EEVOLUTION  331 

distance.  In  the  meantime  the  garrison  at  that  place 
recovered  from  the  alarm,  and  preparations  were  made  for 
destroying  the  stores  and  evacuating  the  post. 

Colonel  Coates  had  already,  at  the  first  intimation  of  the 
movements  of  Sumter,  crossed  from  Monck's  Corner  to  the 
church  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  thus  determining 
the  course  of  his  retreat,  should  that  be  necessary,  by  the  cir- 
cuitous route  by  Wadboo  bridge  across  Fair  Forest  Swamp, 
and  then  by  Quinby  bridge  across  the  eastern  branch  of 
Cooper  River,  and  through  St.  Thomas'  Parish  to  Hobcaw. 
Biggin  Church  was  a  strong  brick  building  and  had  been 
fortified;  and  to  this  the  enemy's  supplies  had  all  been 
removed  from  Monck's  Corner. 

On  the  16th,  Sumter's  force  being  collected,  with  the 
exception  of  Colonel  Henry  Hampton's  regiment,  which 
was  still  watching  Cruger's  movements,  he  moved  for- 
ward so  as  to  support  Maham's  detachment,  which  had 
been  sent  to  make  an  attempt  upon  Wadboo  bridge  in 
Coates's  rear.  This  detachment  having  been  re  enforced 
with  another  under  Colonel  Peter  Horry,  with  whom  was 
Colonel  Lacey,  Horry,  ranking  Maham,  assumed  command 
of  the  whole  party,  and  proceeded  to  effect  the  desired 
destruction  of  the  bridge.  This  Coates  sent  out  his 
mounted  men  to  prevent,  who  advanced  with  a  great  show 
of  confidence,  but  were  received  with  firmness  and  driven 
back  in  confusion.  Colonel  Lacey,  with  his  mounted  rifle- 
men, breaking  entirely  through  their  line,  some  were 
killed  and  a  number  taken  prisoners.  Horry  then  de- 
spatched an  officer  to  destroy  the  bridge,  and  remained  to 
cover  the  party  engaged  in  the  work ;  but  the  enemy,  who 
had  actually  begun  their  retreat,  soon  made  their  appear- 
ance in  such  force  that  Horry,  unfortunately,  considered 
it  proper  to  call  in  the  party  engaged  in  destroying  the 
bridge,   and   to   retire   before   them   to   the    main    body. 


332  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Sumter,  on  the  other  hand,  misconceivmg  Coates's  move- 
ment, and  believing  that  he  had  moved  out  to  give  him 
battle,  retired  behind  a  defile  in  his  rear,  and  prepared  for 
receiving  the  enemy.  But  Coates's  purpose  was  only  to 
delay  him ;  and  accordingly,  retiring  in  the  evening,  he 
gathered  his  stores  in  the  churcli,  set  fire  to  them,  and 
moved  off  on  the  road  to  the  eastward,  crossing  the  Wad- 
boo  bridge,  wliich  Horry  had  abandoned. 

The  flames  bursting  through  the  roof  of  the  church  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  announced  to  Sumter  that  the 
enemy  had  flown.  The  pursuit  was  immediately  begun, 
but  unfortunately  Lieutenant  Singleton,  with  his  piece  of 
artillery,  was  ordered  to  remain  on  the  ground  that  he 
might  not  delay  the  movement  of  the  infantry.  Lee  and 
Hampton  led  the  pursuit  and,  passing  Wadboo  bridge, 
discovered  that  the  mounted  men  of  the  enemy  had  sepa- 
rated from  the  infantry.  The  British  account  in  The 
Royal  Gazette  states  that  the  mounted  men  —  the  loyal 
South  Carolina  troop  which  had  just  been  raised  —  were 
sent  off  because  they  could  not  longer  be  brought  into 
use.  This  party  took  the  road  to  the  right  nearest  the 
river,  while  Coates,  with  the  Nineteenth  Regiment,  turn- 
ing to  the  left,  pursued  that  by  Quinby  bridge.  Hampton 
struck  off  in  pursuit  of  the  mounted  party,  hoping  to 
overtake  them  before  they  could  cross  either  at  Bon- 
neau's  or  Strawberry  ferries,  but  he  was  disappointed; 
they  crossed  at  the  former  before  he  could  reach  them, 
and  secured  the  boats  on  the  opposite  side.  Hampton 
had  then  to  make  his  way  back  to  Avitness  the  escape 
of  the  remaining  object  of  pursuit;  the  enemy's  infantry, 
lost,  as  it  has  been  observed,  perhaps  because  the  first  — 
the  enemy's  cavalry  —  had  divided  the  attention  of  the 
pursuers.^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  170. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  333 

Marion's  cavalry  under  Colonel  Maham  had  meanwhile 
joined  Lee  in  pursuit  of  the  infantry.  It  was  very  impor- 
tant to  overtake  Coates  before  he  reached  Quinby  bridge, 
as  it  was  well  known  that  the  stream  there,  the  eastern 
branch  of  Cooper  River,  was  only  passable  at  the  bridge, 
which  it  was  certain  Coates  would  destroy  as  soon  as  he 
crossed.  The  pursuit  was  therefore  pressed  with  the  utmost 
speed,  and  about  a  mile  to  the  north  of  the  bridge  the  rear 
guard  of  the  retreating  party  was  overtaken  with  nearly  the 
whole  of  their  baggage.  The  rear  guard,  commanded  by 
a  Captain  Campbell,  consisted  of  one  hundred  men  of 
the  Nineteenth  Regiment;  they  at  first  exhibited  a  show 
of  resistance,  but,  terrified  at  the  furious  onset  of  the 
cavalry,  having  as  yet  seen  no  service,  being  all  recruits,  it 
is  said,  they  threw  down  their  arms  without  firing  a  gun. 
Indignant  at  their  conduct.  Captain  Campbell  attempted  to 
make  his  men  resume  their  arms,  an  effort  which  unfortu- 
nately recalled  Lee  for  a  few  moments  from  the  pursuit 
of  the  body  of  the  regiment,  which  he  had  resumed.  The 
surrender  of  the  rear  guard,  however,  nearly  proved  fatal 
to  the  whole  British  regiment. 

Colonel  Coates  had  passed  Quinby  bridge  and  had  made 
dispositions  for  its  destruction  as  soon  as  his  rear  guard  and 
baggage  should  have  crossed  in  safety.  The  planks  which 
covered  the  bridge  had  been  loosened  from  the  sleepers,  and 
a  howitzer  placed  at  its  opposite  end  to  protect  the  party 
left  to  complete  its  destruction  after  the  rear  guard  should 
have  passed.  As  neither  alarm  gun  nor  message  had  ap- 
prised Coates  of  an  enemy's  approach,  and  believing  that 
his  rear  guard  was  still  between  him  and  the  enemy,  he 
was  not  prepared  for  immediate  action.  But  fortunately 
for  his  command  he  was  present  at  the  bridge  when  the 
American  cavalry  came  in  view,  and  his  measures  were 
promptly  taken  to  avert  the  threatening  danger.    His  main 


334  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

body  was  at  the  time  partly  on  a  causeway  on  the  south 
side  of  the  bridge,  and  partly  pressed  into  a  lane  beyond  it, 
huddled  together  in  such  a  position  as  to  prevent  their 
forming  for  action.  Coates  took  immediate  steps  to  extri- 
cate his  men,  and  put  them  in  such  a  position  of  defence  as 
the  emergency  allowed. 

The  Legion  cavalry  as  they  approached  the  bridge  were 
in  advance  of  Maham's  command,  Captain  Armstrong 
leading  their  first  section.  Upon  coming  in  sight  of  the 
bridge  and  of  Coates's  force,  unguardedly  reposing  on  the 
other  side,  but  knowing  that  Lee,  his  commander,  had  been 
misinformed  of  the  proximity  of  the  bridge  and  of  the 
situation,  Armstrong  sent  back  for  orders.  Lee,  ignorant 
of  the  condition  of  affairs,  sent  his  adjutant,  warmly 
reminding  him  of  the  order  of  the  day,  which  was  to  fall 
upon  the  foe  without  respect  to  consequences.  Stung  with 
this  answer,  the  brave  Armstrong  put  spur  to  his  horse  at 
the  head  of  his  section,  and  dashed  across  the  bridge  though 
the  planks  were  sliding  into  the  water  and  the  lighted  port 
fire  approaching  the  howitzer  at  its  end.  So  sudden  was 
his  charge  that  he  drove  all  before  him,  the  enemy 
abandoning  the  howitzer.  Unfortunately,  some  of  the 
loosened  planks  were  thrown  off  by  Armstrong's  section, 
as  they  galloped  across,  thus  forming  a  chasm  in  the 
bridge  and  presenting  a  most  dangerous  obstacle  to  their 
followers.  Nevertheless,  the  second  section  of  the  Legion, 
headed  by  Lieutenant  Carrington,  took  the  leap  and  closed 
with  Armstrong,  then  engaged  in  a  personal  combat  with 
Colonel  Coates,  who,  placing  himself  on  the  side  of  a 
wagon  which,  with  a  few  others,  had  kept  up  with  the 
main  body,  was  enabled  effectually  to  parry  Armstrong's 
sabre  strokes  at  his  head.  Most  of  his  soldiers,  panic-stricken 
at  the  sudden  and  daring  attack,  had  abandoned  their 
colonel  and  were  running  through  the  field,  some  with, 


IK  THE   REVOLUTION  335 

some  without  arms,  to  take  shelter  in  a  farmhouse.^  The 
third  section  of  the  Legion,  under  Captain  O'Neill,  had  fol- 
lowed Carrington,  but  faltered,  whereupon  Maham  charged 
by  the  third  section,  but  the  killing  of  his  horse  arrested 
his  career.  Captain  McCauley,  however,  who  led  the  front 
section  of  Maham's  men,  pressed  on,  crossed  the  treacher- 
ous bridge,  notwithstanding  its  dangerous  condition.  The 
causeway  was  now  crowded,  and  a  desperate  hand-to-hand 
conflict  ensued.  Two  of  Lee's  dragoons  fell  dead  at  the 
mouth  of  the  howitzer,  and  several  were  severely  wounded. 
Lee  himself  had  now  come  up,  and  alighting,  was  engaged 
with  Maham  and  Dr.  Irvine,  his  surgeon,  in  endeavoring 
to  repair  the  bridge.  At  this  moment  Armstrong  and  Mc- 
Cauley, perceiving  what  was  before  them,  and  cut  off  from 
retreat  by  the  broken  bridge,  with  a  presence  of  mind  which 
belongs  exclusively  to  consummate  bravery,  dashed  through 
the  flying  soldiers  on  the  causeway,  and,  wheeling  into  the 
woods  on  their  left,  escaped  by  heading  up  the  stream. 

From  whatever  cause  or  motive,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
Lee  did  not  on  this  occasion  act  with  his  usual  decision 
and  vigor.  Sumter  reported  that  if  the  whole  party  had 
charged  across  the  bridge  they  would  have  come  upon  the 
enemy  in  such  confusion,  while  extricating  themselves  from 
the  lane,  that  they  must  have  laid  down  their  arms.^  It 
was  Lee's  delay,  caused  by  his  returning  to  the  captured 
party  upon  Campbell's  attempt  to  retake  their  arms,  and  the 
consequent  hesitation  of  Armstrong  when  finding  himself 
in  a  position  which  he  knew  his  commander  had  not  con- 
templated, that  allowed  Coates  the  opportunity  of  loosening 
the  planks  on  the  bridge.     And  even  then,  it  was  considered 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  390. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  171-172  ;  Sumter's  letter  to  Greene, 
22d  of  July,  1881,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston, 
Appendix,  46. 


336  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

that  with  more  energy  he  might  have  rescued  his  brave 
men  from  their  dangerous  position.  It  is  due,  however,  to 
him  to  give  the  reasons  he  assigned  for  his  failure  to  do  so. 
He  stated  that  the  dragoons  who  dismounted  for  the  pur- 
pose of  replacing  the  planks  could  not,  even  though  cling- 
ing to  the  studs  of  the  bridge,  keep  from  sinking,  there 
being  no  foothold  to  stand  upon ;  nor  was  it  possible  to  find 
any  firm  spot  from  whence  to  swim  the  horses  across.^ 
This  is  very  plausible  to  all  who  are  familiar  with  the 
swamps  of  this  region.  But  Lee's  vindication  of  himself 
in  this  particular  would  be  accepted  the  more  readily  and 
cordially  were  it  not  that,  though  Sumter  was  present  and 
directing  the  movements  of  his  troops  in  the  action  which 
followed,  in  the  account  which  he  has  given  of  it,  he  ignores 
that  officer's  presence  and  represents  himself  as  directing 
the  movements  of  Marion  as  well  as  his  own. 

Colonel  Coates,  leaving  the  bridge  in  an  impassable  con- 
dition, retired  to  the  adjoining  plantation  of  Captain  Shu- 
brick,  and,  not  daring  to  trust  himself  to  the  open  country 
in  the  face  of  such  an  active  cavalry,  took  cover  under  the 
shelter  of  the  buildings,  which  afforded  him  many  advan- 
tages. These  were  situated  on  a  rising  ground ;  the  dwell- 
ing-house was  of  two  stories,  and  contiguous  to  it  a  number 
of  outhouses  and  rail  fences,  affording  security  from  the 
cavalry  and  a  covering  from  the  marksmen  of  the  enemy. 

As  the  Americans  had  now  to  make  a  considerable  cir- 
cuit to  approach  the  house  in  consequence  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  bridge,  it  was  three  o'clock  p.m.  before  General 
Sumter's  force  arrived  on  the  ground.  He  found  the  enemy 
drawn  up  in  a  square  in  front  of  the  house  and  prepared  to 
receive  him.  As  he  had  few  bayonets  it  would  have  been 
folly  to  have  made  a  direct  attack,  and  the  precedent  of 
King's  Mountain  furnished  him  with  his  order  of  battle. 
1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  391. 


IN   THE   DEVOLUTION  337 

His  own  brigade,  under  Colonels  Mydelton,  Polk,  Taylor, 
and  Lacey,  advanced  in  front  under  shelter  of  a  line  of 
negro  houses,  which  they  were  ordered  to  reach  and  occupy. 
General  Marion's  brigade,  which  was  very  much  reduced, 
was  thrown  into  two  divisions  and  ordered  to  advance  on 
the  right  of  the  enemy,  where  there  was  no  shelter  but 
fences,  and  those  within  forty  or  fifty  yards  of  their  position. 
The  cavalry  not  being  able  to  act,  was  stationed  in  a  secure 
position  remote  from  the  scene  of  action,  but  near  enough 
to  cover  the  infantry  from  pursuit.  The  attack  was  made 
against  the  opinion  of  Marion,^  and  though  Lee  by  his  own 
account  was  present  late  in  the  evening,  he  took  no  part  in 
the  affair.2 

Notwithstanding  these  discouraging  circumstances,  Sum- 
ter would  not  forego  the  attempt.  It  was  four  o'clock 
when  the  parties  reached  their  respective  positions  and 
the  signal  was  given  to  advance.  With  the  utmost 
alacrity  they  moved  to  the  attack.  Sumter's  brigade  soon 
gained  the  negro  houses  in  their  front,  and  from  these 
directed  their  rifles  with  certain  effect.  Colonel  Thomas 
Taylor,  with  about  forty-five  men  of  his  regiment  pressed  for- 
ward to  the  fences  on  the  enemy's  left,  and  delivered  a  fire 
which  drew  upon  him  a  charge  of  the  British  bayonet, 
before  which  he  retreated. 

Marion's  men,  says  Johnson,  were  resolved  not  to  be  idle 
spectators,  and,  seeing  the  danger  of  Taylor's  party,  with  a 
firmness  of  veteran  troops,  rushed  through  a  galling  fire  up 
to  the  fences  on  their  right  and  extricated  Taylor ;  and,  not- 
withstanding that  the  open  railing  afforded  but  a  slender  pro- 
tection, continued  to  fire  from  this  slight  cover  as  long  as 
a  charge  of  ammunition  remained  in  the  corps.  The  brunt 
of  the  battle  fell  upon  Marion's  party,  and  they  maintained 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  126. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  392. 


338  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  the  last  the  reputation  they  had  acquired  in  many  a  rude 
conflict.  Most  who  fell  in  the  action  were  of  Marion's 
command.  Among  these  Captain  Perry  and  Lieutenant 
Jones  were  killed,  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  John  Baxter, 
who  was  very  conspicuous  from  his  gigantic  size  and  full 
uniform,  received  five  wounds.  Major  Swinton  was  also 
severely  wounded.^  When  their  ammunition  was  expended 
these  brave  men  were  drawn  off  in  perfect  order.  Very 
early  in  the  action  the  enemy  retired  into  the  house  and 
within  a  picketed  garden,  from  the  windows  and  fence  of 
which  the  action  was  maintained. 

The  sun  was  down  when  the  assailants  were  withdrawn, 
and  this  at  this  season  of  the  year  would  make  the  combat 
at  Shubrick's  farm  to  have  lasted  three  hours.  Is  is,  says 
Johnson,  confidently  asserted  that  not  a  man  left  the 
ground  while  there  remained  to  him  a  charge  of  ammuni- 
tion ;  all  were  ready  to  return  to  it  if  supplied  ;  but  there 
was  none;  unfortunately  that  captured  at  Dorchester  by 
Lee  had  been  forwarded  directly  to  Greene's  headquarters. 
Still  Sumter  had  hope.  The  artillery  had  been  ordered 
up,  and  it  was  possible  that  Captain  Singleton  had  with 
him  some  spare  powder.  Pewter  balls,  Sumter  reported, 
could  have  been  made  in  plenty.  The  army  was  drawn 
across  Quinby  bridge,  which  had  been  repaired  during  the 
action,  and  encamped  at  the  distance  of  three  miles,  leaving 
the  cavalry  to  watch  and  control  the  movements  of  the 
enemy,  and  intending  to  renew  the  combat  in  the  morning. 

But,  says  the  author  from  whom  we  have  so  much 
quoted  and  who  has  given  the  only  full  account  of  this 
unfortunate  affair,  the  demon  of  discord  was  now  working 
the  ruin  of  the  expedition. ^  When  the  parties  who  had 
been  engaged  met  and  compared  their  losses  and  the  cir- 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  126. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II.  173. 


IN    THE   REVOLUTION  339 

cumstances  under  which  they  fought,  it  was  suggested  to 
Marion's  men  that  they  had  been  exposed,  whilst  Sumter's 
own,  with  the  exception  of  Colonel  Taylor's  command,  had 
been  spared,  and  the  idea  furnished,  it  was  said,  a  sufficient 
pretext  for  disgust  and  retiring.  Many  of  them  moved  off 
in  the  night ;  the  infection  was  communicated  to  Sumter's 
men ;  and  to  complete  the  catastrophe,  in  the  morning 
early  Colonel  Lee  with  his  Legion  took  up  the  line  of 
march  for  headquarters  without  consulting  the  wishes  of 
the  commanding  general.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  Colonel  Lee's  account  of  this 
affair.  He  states  that  Marion,  under  his  direction  or  sug- 
gestion, pressed  his  march,  and  having  united  with  him,  Lee, 
late  in  the  evening,  in  front  of  the  house,  and  seeing  that 
no  point  of  Coates's  position  was  assailable  wdth  probable 
hope  of  success,  reluctantly  gave  up  the  attempt. ^  Besides 
ignoring  Sumter's  presence  altogether,  ignoring  an  action 
that  had  lasted  for  hours  before  he  took  part  in  it,  he  repre- 
sents Marion  as  only  coming  on  the  field  late  in  the  even- 
ing with  him,  and  retiring  without  firing  a  gun,  while 
in  fact  Marion  had  been  fighting  all  the  afternoon  and  had 
lost  heavily.  The  most  charitable  view  which  can  be  taken 
of  such  misstatement  is  that  suggested  by  Johnson,  that 
his  recollection  had   failed   him.^     The  expedition  termi- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  173. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  391-392. 

8  Mr.  Henry  Lee,  in  his  work  in  defence  of  his  father's  conduct  in 
answers  to  Judge  Johnson's  strictures,  admits  that  Lee's  account  of  these 
affairs  is  not  accurate.  "  However,"  he  says,  "  it  must  be  allowed  that 
this  branch  of  his  narrative  is  defective."  —  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas 
(Lee),  433.  In  General  Robert  E.  Lee's  edition  of  his  father's  Memoirs, 
he  puts  a  note,  "  The  author  forgot  to  relate  that  after  his  retreat  from 
this  position  of  Coates's  it  was  attacked  by  Sumter  and  Marion  with  con- 
siderable spirit  and  some  loss,  but  without  success,  in  consequence  chiefly 
of  Sumter's  failure  to  bring  up  his  artillery."  —  Memoirs  of  the  War  of 
1776  (Lee),  393. 


340  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

nated  in  still  widening  the  breach  which  already  existed 
between  the  distinguished  officers  engaged  in  it.  Sumter 
directly  charges  Lee  with  having  failed  in  everything  he 
undertook  during  its  course,  a  charge  which  the  facts  go 
far  to  sustain. 

The  numbers  engaged  in  the  battle  have  never  been  ac- 
curately ascertained.  The  British  returns  of  commissary 
issues  found  in  the  baggage  train  gave  900  rations  and  for- 
age for  250  horses.  Estimating  for  the  cavalry  at  150, 
there  could  not,  says  Johnson,  have  been  less  than  500  or 
600  infantry.  This  is  probably  a  correct  estimate.  The 
regiment  was  no  doubt  a  full  one,  as  it  had  recently  arrived 
from  Europe  ;  but  the  two  flank  companies,  it  must  be  recol- 
lected, were  with  Lord  Rawdon,  so  that  but  eight  remained 
with  Colonel  Coates.  Allowing  for  the  ordinary  deductions 
of  details  and  sick,  between  500  and  600  would  probably  be 
the  strength  of  the  regiment  under  Coates.  On  the  other 
side,  Sumter,  having  all  his  own  brigade,  with  the  exception 
of  Henry  Hampton's  regiment,  and  all  of  Marion's,  it  w^ould 
be  supposed  that  he  must  have  had  more  than  that  number. 
He  appears  to  have  had  five  regiments  of  his  own,  Myd- 
elton's,  Polk's,  Taylor's,  Lacey's,  and  Wade  Hampton's, 
and  Marion  to  have  had  four,  Horry's,  Maham's,  Swinton's, 
and  Baxter's ;  but  these  regiments,  as  they  were  called, 
were  not  usually  even  good-sized  companies.  If  we  take 
Colonel  Taylor's  as  the  average,  45,  he  had  little  over  450 
exclusive  of  Lee's  Legion,  150  strong.  And,  indeed,  no 
doubt  overestimating  the  British  force,  Sumter  asserts  that 
their  infantry  alone  was  superior  to  his  whole  force  ;  and 
that  he  attacked  them  with  half  of  their  number.  From 
these  insufficient  data  it  is  perhaps  safe  to  conclude  that 
in  the  fight  at  Shubrick's  house  there  was  no  great  disparity 
in  the  forces  engaged.  We  may  assume  that,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  this  day,  British  and  American  forces   numbered 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  341 

each  about  600  or  700  men.  The  losses  on  the  American 
side  fell  upon  Lee's  Legion,  Maham's  regiment  at  the  bridge, 
and  upon  Marion's  infantry  and  Taylor's  regiment  at  the 
house.  Marion's  and  Taylor's  men  together  lost  more  than 
50  killed  and  wounded.^  Two  of  Lee's  Legion  were  killed 
at  the  bridge  and  several  wounded.^  The  American  loss  was 
therefore  probably  at  least  60  killed  and  wounded.  Sumter, 
however,  reported  but  38  killed  and  wounded.^  In  the  ac- 
count of  this  battle  published  in  The  Royal  Grazette  "  by  au- 
thority," the  British  loss  is  admitted  to  have  been  6  men 
killed,  with  an  officer  and  38  wounded.  No  mention  is  made 
of  the  loss  of  their  rear  guard,  which  numbered  100  men.* 

If  these  figures  are  at  all  correct,  it  is  a  mistake  to  say,  as 
does  Johnson,  that  even  after  the  departure  of  a  part  of  his 
troops  and  the  retirement  of  the  Legion,  Sumter  still  had 
a  sufficient  number  to  have  held  the  enemy  in  a  state  of 
investment  whilst  he  tiied  the  effect  of  his  artillery.  Could 
he  have  induced  Coates  to  come  out  and  meet  him  in  tlia 
field,  he  might  well  have  counted  upon  a  favorable  result ; 
but  he  was  in  no  position  for  an  investment.  He  was,  as 
Johnson  admits,  but  twenty  miles  from  Charlestown,  at  a 
place  accessible  by  tide-water.  Lord  Rawdon  was  known 
to  be  moving  down  in  force  from  Orangeburgh,  and 
he  himself  fifteen  miles  below  Monck's  Corner,  which  is 
but  sixteen  miles  from  Goose  Creek,  where  Lord  Rawdon's 
force  might  already  have  arrived.  There  being,  therefore, 
serious  grounds  for  apprehending  disaster.  General  Sumter 
resolved  to  retreat  across  the  Santee.^ 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  125. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  173.     Lee  gives  no  numbers. 

8  Letter  to  Greene,  25th  of  July,  1781,  in  Nightingale  Collection,  Tear 
BooTc^  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  48. 

*  Johnson's  lAfe  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  170. 

^  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  175  ;  Sumter's  letters,  Nightingale 
Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1809,  Appendix,  49. 


342  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

The  failure  of  this  part  of  the  expedition  was  doubtless 
primarily  attributable  to  the  withdrawal  of  Horry  and 
Maham  from  Wadboo  bridge  without  destroying  it.  It  is 
said  their  failure  to  do  so  was  owing  to  the  appearance  of 
Coates  in  force,  whom  they  could  not  withstand.  But  this 
does  not  explain  why  it  was  not  destroyed  before.  Sumter 
had  despatched  Maham,  a  bold  and  enterprising  officer,  to 
effect  this  before  he  began  his  advance,  and  yet  it  was  not 
attempted  until  Horry's  arrival.  The  next  cause  was  Lee's 
delay  in  securing  the  prisoners  taken  on  the  road,  under 
the  mistaken  belief  that  the  bridge  was  at  least  a  mile 
distant.  Nor  is  it  explained  why  the  artillery  was  not 
brought  into  action.  Then  there  was  the  want  of  coopera- 
tion, not  to  say  insubordination,  of  Lee ;  and  lastly,  the 
jealousy  between  Sumter  and  Marion,  which  had  unfortu- 
nately extended  to  their  men.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  in 
view  of  the  whole  situation,  whether,  under  any  circum- 
stances, Sumter  could  have  risked  a  further  delay  so  near 
the  British  lines,  when  once  his  first  attack  had  failed. 

Yet,  though  the  principal  object  was  not  attained,  observes 
Johnson,  considerable  benefits  resulted  from  the  expedition : 
the  British  interest  was  materially  shaken,  their  party 
alarmed  and  humbled ;  the  spirit  of  the  Whigs  raised ;  and 
the  fact  was  announced  to  the  world  that  the  country  was 
not  conquered.  Nor  was  it  without  serious  injury  to  the 
enemy  in  actual  loss :  150  prisoners  were  taken  and  9 
commissioned  officers  killed  or  wounded,  besides  the  loss 
at  Quinby,  where  one  officer  and  38  privates  had  been 
wounded  and  6  privates  killed.  Stores  to  a  large  amount 
as  well  in  the  church  as  in  four  schooners  that  were  cap- 
tured were  destroyed;  horses,  wagons,  and  stores  to  a 
respectable  amount  were  captured  and  carried  off. 

Among  the  latter  was  a  prize  remarkable  for  its  extreme 
rarity  in  the  American  army.     This  was  the  sum  of  720 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  343 

guineas  in  the  paymaster's  chest  taken  with  the  baggage 
at  Quinby's  bridge.  Sumter  that  evening  divided  it  among 
the  soldiers,  and  so  much  hard  money  had  perhaps  never 
before  been  in  possession  of  the  army  at  one  time.  Had 
the  general  been  more  politic  than  liberal,  the  detention  of 
it  a  day  or  two,  continues  the  same  author,  might  have 
prevented  the  departure  of  some  who  left  him  who  were 
the  better  able  and  the  more  desirous  to  leave  him  after 
the  receipt  of  the  glittering  guinea  which  fell  to  the  share 
of  each  soldier. 

Sumter  recrossed  the  Santee  and  took  post  as  directed 
by  Greene,  near  Friday's  Ferry,  opposite  Granby,  leaving 
Marion  to  take  charge  of  the  country  on  the  Santee. 
Marion  took  post  at  Cordes  and  afterwards  at  Peyre's  plan- 
tation, near  where  the  Santee  canal  afterwards  opened  into 
that  river. 

Thus  ended  the  campaign  which  General  Greene  rather 
followed  than  led,  from  his  return  to  South  Carolina  in 
April.  He  established  a  camp  in  the  salubrious  and  delight- 
ful region  of  the  High  Hills  of  Santee  on  a  plain  at  that 
time  known  as  James  Oldfield's,  afterwards  the  plantation 
of  Colonel  John  Singleton.  There  he  went  into  repose 
during  the  extreme  heat  of  the  season,  while  Sumter  and 
Marion  watched  below. 


CHAPTER  XV 

1781 

There  had  been  no  exchange  of  prisoners,  except  in  a 
very  few  special  cases,  in  the  Southern  Department,  since 
the  commencement  of  the  war.  The  large  number  taken 
by  the  British  at  Charlestown  and  Camden  in  1780  had 
rendered  them  indifferent  in  the  matter  —  if  indeed  it 
was  not  against  their  policy  to  enter  into  any  agreement 
looking  to  the  release  of  the  Continental  officers  and 
soldiers  they  held  in  Christ  Church  Parish  and  on  the 
prison  ships,  as  well  as  the  distinguished  exiles  in 
Florida. 

The  prisoners  taken  upon  the  capitulation  of  Charles- 
town,  civil  and  military,  were  treated  at  first  with  no  great 
severity ;  but  as  the  war  went  on  and  others  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  British,  the  treatment  of  all  became  harsh, 
and  often  cruel  and  infamous.  It  has  been  seen  that 
many  of  the  prominent  citizens  were  exiled  to  St. 
Augustine.  By  the  terms  of  the  capitulation  of  Charlestown 
the  Continental  troops  and  sailors  were  to  be  conducted  to 
a  place  to  be  agreed  upon,  where  they  were  to  remain 
prisoners  until  exchanged,  and  to  be  supplied  with  good 
wholesome  provisions  in  such  quantity  as  served  out  to 
the  troops  of  his  Britannic  iNIajesty.  In  pursuance  of  this, 
contiguous  buildings  in  the  town  were  appropriated  for 
the  private  soldiers,  and  the  officers  of  the  army  and  navy 
were  sent  to  the  barracks  at  Haddrell's  Point  in  Christ 

344 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  345 

Church  Parish,  just  opposite  the  town.  And  as  the  bar- 
racks there  were  not  sufficient  for  the  number,  274,  some 
of  the  officers  obtained  lodgings  in  the  houses,  and  some 
built  huts  within  the  limits  of  their  paroles,  six  miles  from 
the  point.  General  Moultrie  and  Colonel  C.  C.  Pinckney 
were  in  excellent  quarters  at  Colonel  Charles  Pinckney 's 
place,  called  Snee  Farm.  In  a  very  little  time  all  were 
comfortably  settled  with  little  gardens  about  them.  At 
first  General  Patterson,  the  commandant,  seemed  inclined 
to  treat  the  prisoners  with  courtesy  and  leniency — espe- 
cially General  Moultrie,  whom  he  put  in  personal  charge 
of  all  his  co-prisoners.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  these 
were  a  troublesome  set  to  deal  with.  Moultrie  states 
that  they  were  ungovernable,  which  was  not  to  be  won- 
dered at,  when  more  than  two  hundred  men  from  differ- 
ent States,  of  different  dispositions,  some  of  them  very 
uncouth  gentlemen,  as  it  was  said,  were  huddled  up 
together  in  idleness  in  barracks.  He  adds  that  it  was  not 
surprising  that  there  should  be  continued  disputes  and 
frequent  duels.  General  Mcintosh,  who  was  the  senior 
officer,  complained  to  Moultrie  of  the  disorderly  conduct 
of  some  of  those  quartered  with  him  in  the  barracks ; 
whereupon  Moultrie  wrote  to  him  to  inform  them  that 
he  considered  himself  authorized,  notwithstanding  they 
were  all  prisoners  of  war,  to  order  court-martial  upon  any 
who  should  misbehave,  and  to  forward  the  sentences  with 
his  approval  or  disapproval  to  Congress ;  that  in  this  the 
British  commandant  agreed  with  him,  and  would  send  a 
flag  to  Congress  for  this  purpose.  At  first  four  officers 
from  each  State  line  were  allowed  to  remain  in  town  to 
superintend  and  look  after  the  sick  and  wounded  of  their 
respective  commands  ;  but  the  privilege  was  withdrawn, 
as  it  was  alleged,  because  of  the  escape  of  Justice 
Pendleton,  but  probably  from  some  other  motive. 


346  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Judge  Pendleton's  case  was  this.^  He  was  informed  of 
a  plot  of  a  party  of  Tories  to  take  him  from  his  quarter, 
at  night,  and  hang  him  at  the  town  gate,  for  what  cause 
is  not  told.  Upon  this  information  he  counterfeited  Major 
Benson's,  the  brigade  major's,  handwriting,  and  made  out 
a  pass  by  which  he  escaped.  Upon  this  Lord  Cornwallis 
sent  for  Moultrie  and  required  him  to  order  Pendleton 
back,  or  that  the  prisoners  at  Haddrell's  Point  would 
suffer  for  it.  The  general  promptly  replied  that  he  was 
not  responsible  for  any  man's  parole  but  his  own;  espe- 
cially for  that  of  a  civilian  over  whom  he  had  no  control. 
Cornwallis,  however,  insisted  that  he  had  the  right  to 
discriminate,  and  to  place  some  one  in  confinement  in 
Judge  Pendleton's  place.  Whereupon  General  Moultrie 
undertook  to  write  to  Congress  and  lay  the  matter  before 
that  body,  which  he  did.  Lord  Cornwallis  forwarding  the 
letter  to  its  destination. 

The  next  cause  of  complaint  was  the  hilarious  celebra- 
tion of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  on  the  4th  of  July 
by  the  officers  in  the  barracks,  for  which  Moultrie  was 
again  called  upon  to  answer.  This  he  did  with  great 
firmness  and  dignity.  After  giving  an  account  of  the 
affair,  and  regretting  to  find  that  some  pistols  had  been 
fired,  he  replied  that  it  was  by  no  means  inconsistent  with 
their  paroles  to  have  celebrated  the  day.  "  I  go  no  farther 
back  than  the  present  war,"  he  wrote ;  "  the  British  troops 
have  given  us  several  precedents  of  it ;  the  Seventh  Regi- 
ment, now  in  Charlestown,  celebrated  the  anniversary  of 
St.   George's  Day,  when  prisoners  at  Carlisle;   and  the 

1  Henry  Pendleton,  a  Virginian,  who  came  to  South  Carolina  and  was 
a  member  of  the  bar  in  1771.  — See  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  under  Roy.  Gov. 
(McCrady),  481.  He  was  elected  a  judge  under  the  constitution  of  1776, 
with  Chief  Justice  William  Henry  Drayton,  John  Mathews,  and  Thomas 
Bee.    He  had  been  captured  at  the  taking  of  Charlestown. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  347 

convention  troops  \^i.e.  Burgoyne's  army]  kept  the  birthday 
of  his  Britannic  Majesty  both  in  the  year  '78  and  '79,  with- 
out the  harsh  animadversion  of  '  indecent  abuse  of  lenity ' 
and  '  gross  outrage.'  "  The  result  was,  however,  an  order 
requiring  the  officers  to  deliver  up  all  their  firearms,  and  a 
general  curtailment  of  their  privileges,  which,  it  must  be 
admitted,  had  up  to  this  time  been  very  considerable. 

Upon  seeing,  in  the  paper  of  the  29th  of  August,  1780, 
an  account  of  the  arrest  of  the  citizens,  who  were  soon 
after  sent  to  St.  Augustine,  General  Moultrie  promptly 
protested  against  it,  and  asked  leave  to  send  an  officer  to 
Congress  to  represent  this  grievance.  But  to  this  Balfour's 
reply  was :  "  The  commandant  will  not  return  any  answer 
to  a  letter  wrote  in  such  exceptionable  and  unwarrantable 
terms  as  that  to  him  from  General  Moultrie  dated  the  1st 
instant.  Nor  will  he  receive  any  further  application  from 
him  upon  the  subject  of  it."  ^  But  General  Moultrie  was 
not  to  be  silenced  in  the  face  of  wrong,  even  though  he 
was  in  the  power  of  those  to  whom  he  wrote.  When 
Camden  and  Fishing  Creek  multiplied  the  number  of 
prisoners,  and  there  was  no  more  room  for  them  in  the 
barracks  and  contiguous  buildings  in  the  town,  the  Conti- 
nental soldiers  who  had  been  taken  in  Charlestown,  and 
whose  treatment  had  been  expressly  stipulated  for  in  the 
terms  of  capitulation,  were  removed  from  the  quarters  pro- 
vided under  the  terms  of  surrender,  and  were  crowded  on 
board  the  prison  ships  in  such  numbers  that  some  could 
not  find  room  even  to  lie  down.  The  newly  taken  prison- 
ers shared  the  same  fate.  Against  this  violation  of  the 
terms  of  the  capitulation  Moultrie  fearlessly  and  indig- 
nantly protested.  To  Colonel  Balfour,  the  commandant 
since  the  removal  of  General  Patterson,  he  wrote,  on  the 
16th  of  October,  1780  :  — 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  138-139. 


348  HISTORY   OF    SOUTH   CAROLINA 

"  Sir  :  However  my  letter  may  be  thought  by  you  '  to  be  wrote 
in  exceptionable  and  unwarrantable  terms,'  yet  I  cannot  be  deterred 
from  representing  matters  of  such  consequence  as  I  am  now  con- 
strained to  do  in  the  strongest  manner.  Though  it  is  indifferent  to 
me  whether  I  write  to  you  or  to  the  commissary  of  prisoners  on 
trifling  applications,  yet  when  my  duty  calls  upon  me  loudly  to 
remonstrate  against  a  proceeding  of  so  high  a  nature  as  a  violation 
of  a  solemn  capitulation,  I  then  think  it  necessary  to  make  my  appli- 
cation as  near  the  fountain  head  as  possible.  I  therefore,  sir,  address 
myself  to  you  to  complain  of  a  great  breach  of  the  capitulation  in 
sending  the  Continental  soldiers  on  board  prison  ships  (the  truth  of 
which  I  have  not  the  least  doubt  of),  as  part  of  the  agreement  for 
which  the  town  was  delivered  up  to  Sir  Henry  Clinton  was  that  the 
Continental  soldiers  should  be  kept  in  some  contiguous  building  in 
the  town,  as  appears  by  the  following  extract  from  their  Excellencies, 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  and  Admiral  Arbuthnot's  letter  of  the  12th  of  May, 
1780,  antecedent  to  the  surrender :  — 

" '  Sir  :  We  have  to  request  that  you  will  propose  some  proper 
contiguous  building  in  the  town  for  the  residence  of  the  private 
soldiers,  prisoners  of  war  not  to  be  on  parole.  These  will  be,  of 
course,  such  as  may  in  discretion  be  asked.' 

"  The  barracks  and  some  adjacent  houses  were  then  proposed  and 
agreed  upon ;  as  a  proof  of  which  the  soldiers  have  been  confined  in 
those  buildings  from  the  very  instant  of  the  surrender  till  this  pres- 
ent removal,  which  I  do  most  solemnly  protest  against,  and  complain 
to  you,  sir,  of  a  direct  violation  of  the  third  article  of  capitulation, 
and  demand  that  the  Continental  soldiers  be  ordered  back  to  the  bar- 
racks and  other  houses  in  which  they  were  first  confined." 

This  was  no  doubt  true ;  the  third  article  of  capitulation 
had  expressly  provided  that  the  Continental  troops  and 
sailors  with  their  baggage  should  be  conducted  to  a  place 
to  he  agreed  on^  where  they  shall  remain  prisoners  of  war 
until  exchanged.  But  Balfour  did  not  deign  to  discuss  the 
matter.  He  curtly  replied,  "That  he  would  do  as  he 
pleased  with  the  prisoners  for  the  good  of  his  Majesty's 
service,  and  not  as  General  Moultrie  pleases."^ 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  H,  142;  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca., 
vol.  II,  257,  258. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  349 

"  After  the  defeat  of  General  Gates,"  says  Doctor  Peter 
Fayssoux,  the  Continental  surgeon  left  in  charge  of  the 
American  prisoners,^  "our  sufferings  commenced.  The 
British  appeared  to  have  adopted  a  different  mode  of  con- 
duct towards  their  prisoners,  and  proceeded  from  one  step 
to  another  until  they  fully  displayed  themselves  void  of 
faith,  honor,  or  humanity,  and  capable  of  the  most  savage 
acts  of  barbarity. 

"The  unhappy  men  who  belonged  to  the  militia  and 
were  taken  prisoners  on  Gates's  defeat,  experienced  the 
first  effects  of  the  cruelty  of  the  new  system.  These 
men  were  confined  on  board  prison  ships  in  numbers  by  no 
means  proportioned  to  the  size  of  the  vessels,  immediately 
after  a  march  of  120  miles  in  the  most  sickly  season  of  this 
unhealthy  climate. 

"  These  vessels  were  in  general  infected  with  small-pox  ; 
very  few  of  the  prisoners  had  gone  through  that  disorder. 
A  representation  was  made  to  the  British  commandant  of 
their  situation,  and  permission  was  obtained  for  one  of  our 
surgeons  to  inoculate  them  —  this  was  the  utmost  extrem- 
ity of  their  humanity.  The  wretched  objects  were  still 
confined  on  board  of  the  prison  ships  and  fed  on  salt  pro- 
visions without  the  least  medical  aid,  or  any  kind  of 
proper  nourishment.  The  effect  that  naturally  followed 
was  a  small-pox  with  a  fever  of  the  putrid  type,  and  to 
such  as  survived  the  small-pox  a  putrid  dysentery,  and 
from  these  causes  the  deaths  of  at  least  150  of  the  unhappy 
victims.  Such  Avere  the  appearances  and  such  was  the 
generality  of  the  cases  brought  to  the  general  hospital 
after  the  eruption  of  the  small-pox ;  before  the  eruption 
not  a  single  individual  was  suffered  to  be  brought  on 
shore." 

Upwards  of   800   of    these   prisoners,   nearly   one-third 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  117,  121. 


350  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  the  whole,  exhausted  by  a  variety  of  suffering,  expired 
in  the  short  space  of  thirteen  months'  captivity.  Wlieu 
the  general  exchange  took  place  in  June,  1781,  out  of 
1900,^  there  were  only  740  restored  to  the  service  of  their 
country.  But  it  was  not  by  death  alone,  says  Ramsay, 
that  the  Americans  were  deprived  of  their  soldiers.  Lord 
Charles  Greville  Montagu,  the  former  Governor  of  South 
Carolina,  who,  after  leaving  the  province  in  1773,  had  fre- 
quently declared  himself  warmly  attached  to  the  liberties 
of  America,  and  had  actually,  it  was  said,  offered  his 
services  to  Dr.  Franklin  in  Paris  to  take  a  command  in  the 
army  of  Congress,  failing  to  find  employment  on  this  side 
of  the  contest,  had  entered  the  service  on  the  other  and 
obtained  leave  to  raise  a  regiment  from  among  the  rebels 
taken  prisoners.^  He  arrived  in  Charlestown  after  the 
capitulation,  and  applied  himself  to  the  task  of  inducing 
the  Continental  soldiers  to  desert  the  cause  in  which  they 
were  enlisted,  and  to  join  his  regiment.  Indeed,  it  is  be- 
lieved that  this  was  one  of  the  objects  in  view  which  in- 
duced the  vigorous  treatment  of  the  prisoners,  in  violation 
of  the  terms  of  capitulation.  His  lordship  succeeded  in 
enlisting  530  of  them  in  the  British  service.^     His  return 

1  Ramsay's  Hist,  of  the  Revolution  in  So.  Ca. ,  vol.  II,  288.  This  is 
Ramsay's  statement ;  but  which  troops  constituted  the  1900  of  which  he 
speaks  we  do  not  know.  The  Continental  troops  surrendered  at  Charles- 
town  on  the  12th  of  May,  1780,  numbered  2650.  —  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the 
Revolution  (McCrady),  507. 

2  Lord  Charles  Greville  Montagu,  son  of  Robert,  third  Duke  of  Man- 
chester, Governor  of  South  Carolina  from  1766  to  1773.  — Hist,  of  So.  Ca. 
under  Boy.  Gov.  (McCrady),  587  et  seq.  Appointed  captain  of  the 
Eighty-eighth  Foot  12th  of  December,  1780 ;  major  in  the  army  12th  of 
June,  1782.  —  Clinton- C or nwallis  Controversy^  vol.  II,  Index. 

3  These  recruits  for  the  British  army  from  the  American  prisoners  were 
from  the  Continental  line  ;  and,  considering  the  character  of  the  men  of 
the  rank  and  file  of  that  body,  in  which  were  forced,  by  way  of  punish- 
ment, all  men  convicted  of  being  idle,  lewd,  disorderly,  or  sturdy  beggars, 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  361 

to  South  Carolina  seems  really  to  have  been  more  with 
the  purpose  of  seducing  the  upholders  of  the  American 
cause  from  their  allegiance  to  it  than  any  military  service 
of  his  own  in  the  field,  for  not  only  did  he  use  the  dis- 
tressed condition  of  the  Continental  soldiers  to  induce 
them  to  accept  his  offer  in  preference  to  the  horrors  of  a 
prison  ship  by  the  specious  promise  that  they  should  be  em- 
ployed in  the  West  Indies  and  not  against  their  country- 
men in  the  United  States,  but  he  aimed  higher,  —  to  seduce 
even  the  noble  Moultrie  himself  from  the  cause  of  his  coun- 
try. The  first  attempt  in  this  direction  was  made  by 
Colonel  Balfour  upon  General  Moultrie's  son.  On  the 
14th  of  January,  1781,  this  officer  wrote  as  follows:  — 

"Mr.  Moultrie,  your  father's  character  and  your  own  have  been 
represented  to  me  in  such  a  light  that  I  wish  to  serve  you  both ;  what 
I  have  to  say  I  will  sum  up  in  a  few  words.  I  wish  you  to  propose  to 
your  father  to  relinquish  the  cause  he  is  now  engaged  in,  which  he 
may  do  without  the  least  dishonor  to  himself ;  he  can  only  enclose  his 
commission  to  the  first  general  officer  (General  Greene,  for  instance)  ; 
the  command  will  devolve  on  the  next  officer,  which  is  often  done  in 
our  service ;  any  officer  may  resign  his  commission  in  the  field  if  he 
chooses ;  if  your  father  will  do  this  he  may  rely  on  me  he  shall  have 
his  estate  restored  to  him,  and  all  damages  paid  him ;  I  believe  you 
are  the  only  heir  to  your  father.  As  for  you,  sir,  if  your  father  con- 
tinues firm  I  shall  never  ask  you  to  bear  arms  against  him.  These 
favors  you  may  depend  I  shall  be  able  to  obtain  from  my  Lord  Corn- 
wallis,  and  you  may  rely  on  my  honor  this  matter  shall  never  be  di- 
vulged by  me." 

Mr.  Moultrie  refused  to  make  any  such  proposal  to  his 
father.!  Thereupon  Lord  Charles  Montagu  himself  under- 
took the  matter,  and  thus  addressed  Moultrie  under  the 

—  see  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Eevolution  (McCrady),  299,  300,  301,  302- 
309, — it  is  not  surprising  to  find  them  willing  to  exchange  service  from 
Congress  to  the  King,  or  vice  versa,  as  indeed  did  many  of  those  who  re- 
mained, without  the  excuse  which  these  could  plead. 
1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  149,  150. 


352  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

guise  of  disinterested  friendship.     On  the  11th  of  March, 
1781,  he  wrote  :i  — 

"  Sir  :  A  sincere  wish  to  promote  what  may  be  to  your  advantage 
induces  me  now  to  write.  The  freedom  with  which  we  have  often 
conversed  makes  me  hope  you  will  not  take  amiss  w^hat  I  say. 

"  My  own  principles  respecting  the  commencement  of  this  unfortu- 
nate war  are  well  known  to  you,  and  of  course  you  can  conceive 
what  I  mention  is  out  of  friendship :  you  have  now  fought  bravely 
in  the  cause  of  your  country  for  many  years,  and  in  my  opinion  ful- 
filled the  duty  every  individual  owes  to  it :  you  have  had  your  share 
of  hardships  and  difficulties ;  and  if  the  contest  is  still  to  be  continued, 
younger  hands  should  now  take  the  toil  from  you.  You  have  now  a 
fair  opening  of  quitting  that  service  with  honour  and  reputation  to 
yourself  by  going  to  Jamaica  with  me.  The  world  will  readily  attrib- 
ute it  to  the  known  friendship  that  has  subsisted  between  us,  and, 
by  quitting  this  country  for  a  short  time,  you  would  avoid  any  disa- 
greeable conversations,  and  might  return  at  leisure  to  take  possession 
of  your  estates  for  yourself  and  family.  The  regiment  I  am  going 
to  command,  the  only  proof  I  can  give  you  of  my  sincerity  is,  that  I 
will  quit  that  command  to  you  with  pleasure  and  serve  under  you. 
I  earnestly  wish  I  could  be  the  instrument  to  effect  what  I  propose, 
as  I  think  it  would  be  a  great  means  towards  promoting  that  recon- 
ciliation we  all  wish  for.  A  thousand  circumstances  concur  to  make 
this  a  proper  period  for  you  to  embrace :  our  old  acquaintance :  my 
having  formerly  been  governor  in  the  province :  etc.,  etc.,  the  interest 
I  have  with  the  present  commander. 

"  I  give  you  my  honour  what  I  write  is  entirely  unknown  to  the 
commandant,  or  to  any  one  else,  and  so  shall  your  answer  be  if  you 
favour  me  with  one.     Think  well  of  me. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  Ch  :  Montagu." 

No  further  comment  need  be  made  to  this  letter  than 
that  contained  in  the  temperate  but  admirable  reply  of 
General  Moultrie.     He  wrote  :  ^  — • 

"My  Lord  :  I  received  yours  this  morning  by  Fisher ;  I  thank  you 
for  your  wish  to  promote  my  advantage,  but  am  surprised  at  your 
proposition;  I  flattered  myself  I  stood  in  a  more  favourable  light  with 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  166.  2  j^i^^^  igg. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  353 

you :  I  shall  write  with  the  same  freedom  with  which  we  used  to  con- 
verse, and  doubt  not,  you  will  receive  it  with  the  same  candour :  I 
have  often  heard  you  express  your  sentiments  respecting  this  unfor- 
tunate war,  when  you  thought  the  Americans  injured;  but  am  now 
astonished  to  find  you  taking  an  active  part  against  them ;  though 
not  fighting  particularly  on  the  continent;  yet  seducing  their  soldiers 
away,  to  enlist  in  the  British  service,  is  nearly  similar. 

"  My  Lord,  you  are  pleased  to  compliment  me  with  having  fought 
bravely  in  my  country's  cause  for  many  years,  and  in  your  opinion, 
fulfilled  the  duty  every  individual  owes  to  it  ;  but  I  differ  widely  with 
you,  in  thinking  that  I  have  discharged  my  duty  to  my  country  while 
it  is  still  deluged  with  blood  and  overrun  by  the  British  troops,  who 
exercise  the  most  savage  cruelties.  When  I  entered  into  this  contest 
I  did  it  with  the  most  matured  deliberation,  and  with  a  determined 
resolution  to  risk  my  life  and  fortune  in  the  cause.  The  hardships  I 
have  gone  through  I  look  back  upon  with  the  greatest  pleasure  and 
honour  to  myself :  I  shall  continue  to  go  on  as  I  have  begun,  that  my 
example  may  encourage  the  youths  of  America  to  stand  forth  in  the 
defence  of  their  rights  and  liberties.  You  call  upon  me  now,  and  tell 
me  I  have  a  fair  opening  of  quitting  that  service  with  honour  and 
reputation  to  myseK  by  going  with  you  to  Jamaica.  Good  God  1  Is 
it  possible  that  such  an  idea  could  arise  in  the  breast  of  a  man  of 
honour.  I  am  sorry  you  should  imagine  I  have  so  little  regard  for 
my  own  reputation  as  to  listen  to  such  dishonourable  proposals.  Would 
you  wish  to  have  that  man,  whom  you  have  honoured  with  your  friend- 
ship to  play  the  traitor  ?  Surely  not.  You  say  by  quitting  this  country 
for  a  short  time  I  might  avoid  disagreeable  conversations,  and  might 
return  at  my  own  leisure  and  take  possession  of  my  estate  for  myself 
and  family ;  but  you  have  forgot  to  tell  me  how  I  am  to  get  rid  of 
the  feelings  of  an  injured  honest  heart,  and  where  to  hide  myself  from 
myself.  Could  I  be  guilty  of  so  much  baseness  I  should  hate  myself 
and  shun  mankind. 

"  This  would  be  a  fatal  exchange  from  my  present  situation,  with  an 
easy  and  approving  conscience  of  having  done  my  duty  and  conducted 
myself  as  a  man  of  honour. 

"My  Lord,  I  am  sorry  to  observe,  that  I  feel  your  friendship  much 
abated  or  you  would  not  endeavour  to  prevail  upon  me  to  act  so  base  a 
part.  You  earnestly  wish  you  could  bring  it  about,  as  you  think  it  will 
be  the  means  of  bringing  about  that  reconciliation  we  all  wish  for.  I 
wish  for  a  reconciliation  as  much  as  any  man,  but  only  upon  honourable 

VOL.  IV.  —  2  a 


364  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

terms.  The  repossessing  of  my  estate,  the  offer  of  the  command  of 
your  regiment,  and  the  honour  you  propose  of  serving  under  me,  are 
paltry  considerations  in  the  loss  of  my  reputation.  No.  Not  the  fee 
simple  of  that  valuable  Island  Jamaica  should  induce  me  to  part 
with  my  integrity. 

"  My  Lord,  as  you  have  made  one  proposal,  give  me  leave  to  make 
another,  which  will  be  more  honourable  to  us  both.  As  you  have  an 
interest  with  your  command  I  would  have  you  propose  the  withdrawing 
of  the  British  troops  from  the  continent  of  America,  allow  the  inde- 
pendence, and  propose  a  peace.  This  being  done  I  will  use  my  interest 
with  my  commander  to  accept  the  terms,  and  allow  Great  Britain  a 
free  trade  with  America. 

"  My  Lord,  I  could  make  one  more  proposal,  but  my  situation  as  a 
prisoner  circumscribes  me  within  certain  bounds ;  I  must,  therefore, 
conclude  with  allowing  you  the  free  liberty  to  make  what  use  of  this 
you  may  think  proper.     Think  better  of  me. 

"  I  am,  my  Lord,  your  Lordship's  most  obedient,  humble  servant, 

"  William  Moultrie."  ^ 

Failing  thus  to  seduce  the  chief  of  the  imprisoned  offi- 
cers, another  course  was  now  adopted  to  compel  their 
submission.  Under  the  flimsy  pretext  that  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Grimk^  and  Major  Habersham  had  been  corre- 
sponding with  the  enemy,  because  they  had  written  letters 
to  an  adherent  of  the  American  cause  in  Beaufort,  —  within 
the  British  lines,  —  there  being  nothing  improper  in  the  let- 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  166-171 ;  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So. 
Ca.,  vol.  II,  289-294  ;  Garden's  Anecdotes,  13-16. 

Mrs.  Ravenel,  in  her  Eliza  Pinckney,  296-297,  states  that  similar  ad- 
vances were  made  both  to  Major  Thomas  Pinckney  and  to  Colonel  Charles 
Cotesworth  Pinckney,  both  of  whom  were  prisoners.  Family  legend  pre- 
serves a  few  of  the  answers  of  the  latter  to  such  overtures.  To  one  Colo- 
nel Pinckney  wrote  :  "  I  entered  into  this  cause  after  reflection  and  through 
principle  j  my  heart  is  altogether  American,  and  neither  severity  nor  favour 
nor  poverty  nor  affluence  can  ever  induce  me  to  swerve  from  it."  To 
another  he  answered :  "  The  freedom  and  independence  of  my  country 
are  the  Gods  of  my  Idolatry.  I  mean  to  rejoin  the  American  army  as 
soon  after  my  exchange  as  I  possibly  can.  I  will  exert  my  abilities  to 
the  utmost  in  the  cause  I  am  engaged  in,  and  to  obtain  success  will  at- 
tempt every  measure  that  is  not  cruel  or  dishonourable." 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  355 

ters  themselves,  these  officers  were  placed  in  close  confine- 
ment until  the  pleasure  of  Lord  Cornwallis,  who  was  then  in 
North  Carolina  fighting  Greene,  should  be  known.  In  com- 
municating the  imprisonment  of  these  officers  to  General 
Moultrie,  Colonel  Balfour  also  took  occasion  to  add :  ^  — 

"  I  am  now  to  address  you  on  a  subject  with  which  I  am  charged  by 
Lord  Cornwallis,  who,  having  in  vain  applied  to  General  Greene  for 
an  equitable  and  general  exchange  of  prisoners,  finds  it  necessary,  in 
justice  to  the  King's  service  and  those  of  the  army  who  are  in  this 
disagreeable  predicament,  to  pursue  such  measures  as  may  eventually 
coerce  it ;  and  his  Lordship  has  consequently  ordered  me  to  send  all 
the  prisoners  of  war  here  forthwith  to  some  of  the  West  India  Islands, 
which  I  am  particularly  directed  to  inform  you  cannot  be  delayed 
beyond  the  middle  of  next  month;  and  for  this  purpose  the  trans- 
ports are  now  allotted,  of  which  an  account  will  soon  be  transmitted 
to  you." 

Colonel  Balfour  added  complaints  against  the  treatment 
of  British  prisoners  by  Marion. 

Moultrie  replied  with  his  usual  spirit.  He  declined  to 
discuss  the  matter  of  the  treatment  of  Colonel  Grimke 
and  Major  Habersham,  as  he  was  himself  a  prisoner,  and 
must  leave  that  to  those  who  were  more  at  liberty.  He 
addressed  himself  with  vigor  to  the  subject  of  the  transpor- 
tation of  the  Continental  ofiQcers.^ 

"  The  subject  of  your  next  clause,"  he  wrote,  "  is  of  a  very  serious 
nature  and  weighty  consequences  indeed.  Before  I  enter  particularly 
into  that,  I  must  request  you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  inform  me  whether 
you  deem  the  capitulation  dissolved  ?  You  tell  me  Lord  Cornwallis 
has  frequently  applied  to  General  Greene  for  an  equitable  exchange 
of  prisoners.  I  can  also  assure  you  that  General  Greene,  in  a  letter  to 
General  Mcintosh,  mentions  that  he  proposed  such  a  measure  to  Lord 
Cornwallis ;  and  I  can  assure  you  that  by  a  letter  from  a  delegate  in 
Congress  we  are  warranted  to-day  that  Congress  has  proposed  a  plan  for 
a  general  exchange,  which  Sir  Henry  Clinton  approved,  and  signified 
to  General  Washington  his  readiness  to  proceed  on  it,  and  for  ought 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  171.  2  ibid.^  173. 


356  HISTORY    OF    SOUTH    CAliOLLXA 

we  know  is  at  this  moment  taking  place.  However,  the  sending  of  us 
to  the  West  Indies  cannot  expedite  the  exchange  one  moment;  neither 
can  the  measure  alleviate  the  distresses  of  those  of  your  officers  who 
are  prisoners,  as  you  must  be  well  assured  such  treatment  as  we  receive 
will  be  fully  retaliated  by  General  Washington." 

This  remonstrance  met  with  no  respect  further  than  that 
General  Moultrie  was  allowed  to  send  copies  of  Balfour's 
notice  and  of  his  reply  to  General  Greene.  Preparations 
for  the  transportation  continued  through  the  month  of 
April.  On  the  2d  of  May  Moultrie  was  informed  "  that  the 
Continental  and  militia  officers  were,  at  the  particular  re- 
quest of  General  Greene,  to  be  sent  to  Long  Island  instead 
of  the  West  Indies,  as  had  been  threatened."  ^  The  day 
after  this,  however  —  that  is,  on  the  3d  of  May,  1781  — 
a  cartel  for  a  general  exchange  of  prisoners  was  agreed  to 
at  the  house  of  Mr.  Claudius  Pegues,  on  the  Pee  Dee, 
between  Captain  Cornwallis  on  the  part  of  Lord  Cornwallis, 
and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Carrington  on  the  part  of  Major- 
General  Greene,  and  this  put  an  end  to  the  proposed 
removal  of  these  prisoners. 

As  soon  as  Colonel  Grimke  was  released  from  confine- 
ment he  made  his  way  at  once  from  the  British  lines  to  the 
American  army,  and  reported  himself  to  General  Greene, 
from  whom  he  solicited  a  court  of  inquiry  upon  his  con- 
duct. This  court  was  unanimously  of  opinion  that  he  had 
not  violated  his  parole  in  corresponding  with  one  within 
the  lines  to  which  he  was  confined,  and  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, his  arrest  having  been  in  violation  of  the  terms  of 
his  surrender,  he  was  justified  in  escaping.  This  finding 
was  approved  by  General  Greene,  who  was  so  strongly  im- 
pressed with  the  justice  and  propriety  of  Colonel  Grimk^'s 
conduct,  and  further  that  the  conduct  of  the  British  had 
absolved  the  paroled  officers,  that  he  readily  consented  to 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  171,  198. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  357 

let  him  have  a  party  of  troops  to  bring  off  all  his  brother 
officers  at  Haddrell's  Point.  To  this  end  General  Greene 
gave  Colonel  Grimk^  a  letter  to  Marion,  who,  also  fully 
approving,  furnished  him  with  a  detachment.  With  this 
Colonel  Grimke  proceeded  forthwith  to  Haddrell's  Point, 
made  a  prisoner  of  the  British  commissary  within  sight  of 
the  town,  and  took  possession  of  the  barracks  and  all  the 
officers.  A  number  of  these  had  proceeded  on  their  way  as 
far  as  the  church,  five  miles  from  the  barracks,  near  Snee 
Farm,  where  General  Moultrie  and  Colonel  Pinckney  were 
quartered,  where  they  halted  and  sent  for  these  officers  to 
join  them.  They,  however,  refused  to  do  so,  not  doubting 
the  right  or  propriety  of  the  measure,  as  they  too  held  that 
the  terms  of  their  capitulation  had  been  violated  by  the 
British,  but  because  they  were  now  soon  to  be  exchanged, 
and  thought  it  best  to  remain  rather  than  run  any  risk.^ 

The  terms  of  this  cartel  included  political  as  well  as  mili- 
tary prisoners  of  war.  It  is  well,  therefore,  at  this  time 
briefly  to  relate  the  treatment  of  the  former,  both  of  those 
remaining  at  home  on  their  paroles  and  of  those  exiled  to 
St.  Augustine.  The  citizens  of  the  town  who  adhered  to 
their  paroles,  rather  than  renew  their  allegiance  to  the  king 
and  accept  protection,  were  treated  with  great  severity. 
Though  they  were  not  allowed  the  rations  of  military  pris- 
oners, they  were  debarred  from  trade  and  employment,  and 
the  exercise  of  any  profession  of  whatever  kind  to  procure 
subsistence.  On  the  25th  of  March,  1781,  Balfour  issued 
the  following  order :  ^  — 

"  Whereas,  divers  persons  who  are  prisoners  on  parole  in  Charlestown 
do  exercise  their  professions  trades  and  occupations  and  avail  them- 
selves of  their  emoluments  and  advantages  incidental  thereto  which 
should  be  enjoyed  by  those  only  who  have  returned  to  their  allegiance 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  IT,  200,  201. 

2  The  Boyal  Gazette,  March  28, 1781. 


358  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

and  are  desirous  of  supporting  his  Majesty's  government  which  affords 
them  protection.  For  prevention  whereof  in  future  it  is  ordered  that 
no  person  now  a  prisoner  on  parole  in  Charlestown  shall  have  the 
liberty  of  exercising  any  profession  trade  mechanick  art  business  or 
occupation.  And  his  Majesty's  subjects  are  hereby  strictly  enjoined 
not  to  employ  such  person  or  persons  on  any  pretence." 

Upon  the  application  of  one  thus  deprived  of  the  means 
of  living,  for  rations,  the  valiant  officer  replied  in  the  fol- 
lowing order : ^  — 

"  All  difficulties  with  regard  to  provisions  ought  to  have  been  con- 
sidered before  the  people  entered  into  rebellion  or  in  the  course  of 
these  twelve  months,  while  they  have  been  allowed  to  walk  about  on 
parole.  All  militia  officers  and  others  on  parole  are  to  keep  their 
paroles  and  remain  in  their  houses." 

But  as  the  sequestration  of  their  property  and  the  dep- 
rivation of  their  means  of  support  did  not  quell  the  spirit 
of  these  people,  resort  was  again  had  to  the  prison  ships.  On 
the  17th  of  May,  that  is,  just  after  the  fall  of  Forts  Watson 
and  Motte  and  the  post  at  Orangeburgh,  and  while  Granby 
was  besieged,  one  hundred  and  thirty  militia  officers,  pris- 
oners on  parole  in  Charlestown,  were  seized  and  sent  on 
board  these  ships.^    In  justification  of  this  measure  Balfour 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  295,  296. 

2  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  541 ;  Gibbes's  Documentary 
Hist.  (1781-82),  75-76. 

List  of  Prisoners  on  Prison  Ships 
On  Board  the  Prison  Ship  Torhay.  —  William  Axon,  Samuel  Ash, 
George  Arthur,  John  Anthony,  Ralph  Atmore,  John  Baddeley,  Peter 
Bounetheau,  Henry  Benbridge,  Joseph  Ball,  Joseph  Bee,  Nathaniel 
Blundell,  James  Bricken,  Francis  Bayle,  William  Basquin,  John  Clarke, 
Jr.,  Thomas  Cooke,  Norwood  Conyers,  James  Cox,  John  Dorsus,  Joseph 
Dunlap,  Rev.  James  Edmonds,  Thomas  Elliott,  Joseph  Elliott,  John  Evans, 
John  Eberley,  Joseph  Glover,  Francis  Grott,  Mitchell  Gargie,  William 
Graves,  Peter  Guerard,  Jacob  Henry,  David  Hamilton,  Thomas  Harris, 
William  Hornby,  Daniel  Jacoby,  Charles  Kent,  Samuel  Lockhart,  Nathan- 
iel Lebby,  Thomas  Listor,  Thomas  Legar^,  John  Lesesne,  Henry  Lybert, 
John  Michael,  John  Minott,  Sr.,  John  Moncrief,  Charles  McDonald,  John 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  359 

addressed  the  prisoners  a  communication  which  he  required 
Messrs.  R.Wells  &  Son,  printers  to  the  King's  Most  Excellent 
Majesty,  to  publish  in  The  Royal  Gazette^  in  which,  charging 
ill  treatment  of  the  prisoners  taken  by  the  Americans,  and 
declaring  it  his  dut}^  to  try  how  far  a  more  decided  line  of 
conduct  would  prevail,  and  whether  the  safety  of  avowed  ad- 
herents to  their  cause  might  not  induce  the  American  troops 
to  extend  a  proper  clemency  to  those  whose  principles  armed 
them  in  defence  of  the  British  government,  he  wrote :  — 

"  Induced  by  these  motives  I  have  conceived  it  an  act  of  expediency 
to  seize  on  your  persons  and  retain  them  as  hostages  for  the  good 
usage  of  all  the  loyal  militia  who  are  or  may  be  made  prisoners  of 
war  resolving  to  regulate  in  the  full  extent  your  treatment  by  the 
measure  of  theirs,  and  which  my  feelings  make  me  hope  may  hereafter 
be  most  lenient. 

"  And  as  I  have  thought  it  necessary  that  those  persons  who  some 
time  since  were  sent  from  thence  to  St.  Augustine  should  in  this 
respect  be  considered  in  the  same  point  of  view  as  yourselves  I  shall 
send  notice  there  that  they  be  likewise  held  as  sureties  for  a  future 
propriety  of  conduct  towards  our  militia  prisoners. 

Minott,  Jr.,  Samuel  Miller,  Stephen  Moore,  George  Monck,  Jonathan 
Morgan,  Abraham  Mariette,  Solomon  Milner,  John  Neufville,  Jr.,  Philip 
Prioleau,  James  Poyas,  Job  Palmer,  Joseph  Robinson,  Daniel  Rhody, 
Joseph  Righton,  William  Snelling,  John  Stevenson,  Jr.,  Paul  Snyder, 
Abraham  Seavers,  Ripley  Singleton,  Samuel  Skottowe,  Stephen  Shrews- 
bury, John  Saunders,  James  Toussiger,  Paul  Taylor,  Sims  White,  James 
Wilkins,  Isaac  White,  George  Welch,  Benjamin  Wheeler,  William  Wilkie, 
John  Welch,  Thomas  You. 

On  Board  the  Schooner  Pack  Horse.  —  John  Barnwell,  Edward  Barn- 
well, Robert  Barnwell,  William  Branford,  John  Blake,  Thomas  Cochran, 
Joseph  Cray,  Robert  Dewar,  H.  W.  De  Saussure,  Thomas  Eveleigh, 
John  Edwards,  Jr.,  John  W.  Edwards,  William  Elliott,  Benjamin  Gue- 
rard,  Thomas  Grayson,  John  Gibbons,  Philip  Gadsden,  John  Greaves, 
William  H.  Hervey,  John  B.  Holmes,  William  Holmes,  Thomas  Hughes, 
James  Heyward,  George  Jones,  Henry  Kennon,  John  Kean,  Stephen  Lee, 
Philip  Meyer,  George  Mosse,  William  Neufville,  John  Owen,  Charles  Pinck- 
ney,  Jr.,  Sanmel  Smith,  William  Wigg,  Charles  Warham,  Thomas  Waring, 
Sr.,  Richard  Waring,  John  Waters,  David  Warham,  Richard  Yeadon. 


360  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

"  Reasons  so  cogent  and  which  have  only  the  most  humane  purposes 
for  their  objects  will  I  doubt  not  be  considered  by  every  reasonable 
person  as  a  sufficient  justification  of  this  most  necessary  measure 
even  in  those  points  where  it  may  militate  with  the  capitulation  of  Charles- 
toivn,  though  indeed  the  daily  infractions  of  it  by  the  breach  of  paroles 
would  alone  warrant  this  procedure." 

Admitting  thus  that  the  measure  was  a  violation  of  the 
terms  of  their  capitulation,  he  added  :  — 

"  Having  been  thus  candid  in  stating  to  you  the  causes  of  this  con- 
duct I  can  have  no  objections  to  your  making  any  proper  use  of  this 
letter  you  may  judge  to  your  advantage  and  will  therefore  should  you 
deem  it  expedient  grant  what  flags  of  truce  may  be  necessary  to  carry 
out  copies  of  it  to  any  officer  commanding  American  troops  in  these 
parts,  and  in  the  mean  time  the  fullest  directions  will  be  given 
that  your  present  situation  be  rendered  as  eligible  as  the  nature  of 
the  circumstances  will  admit." 

To  this  communication  Lieutenant-Colonel  Stephen 
Moore,  of  North  Carolina,  Major  John  Barnwell,  Samuel 
Lockhart,  John  Baddeley,  Benjamin  Guerard,  and  Charles 
Pinckney,  Jr.,  on  the  19th  addressed  the  following  tem- 
perate and  admirable  reply  :  — 

"  Sir  :  Yesterday  we  transmitted  to  you  a  letter  enclosing  a  copy  of 
yours,  with  a  list  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-nine  prisoners  of  war 
confined  on  board  this  ship  which  we  hope  is  forwarded  to  Major- 
General  Greene  agreeable  to  your  promise,  and  make  no  doubt  but 
that  your  feelings  as  a  gentleman  will  upon  this  occasion  induce  you 
to  do  everything  in  your  power  to  liberate  from  a  most  injurious  and 
disagreeable  confinement  those  against  whom  there  can  exist  no 
charge  of  dishonor,  and  whose  only  crime  if  such  it  can  possibly  be 
termed  by  men  of  liberal  ideas  is  an  inflexible  attachment  to  what 
they  conceive  to  be  the  rights  of  their  country,  and  who  have  scorned 
to  deceive  you  by  unmeaning  professions. 

"  In  justice  to  ourselves  we  must  say  that  if  the  Americans  have  at 
any  time  so  far  divested  themselves  of  that  character  for  humanity 
and  generosity  which  ever  distinguished  them  we  feel  ourselves  most 
sensibly  mortified,  but  are  induced  from  the  generous  treatment  of 
Colonels  Lechmere,  Rugeley,  Fenwicke  and  Kelsall  and  their  parties 


IN  THE   llEYOLUTION  361 

and  from  a  number  of  other  instances  which  might  easily  be  adduced 
to  believe  that  the  outrages  which  you  complain  of  must  be  the  effect 
of  private  resentment  (subsisting  between  British  subjects  and  those 
who  after  having  availed  themselves  of  the  royal  proclamation,  have 
resumed  their  arms  in  opposition  to  that  government),  and  totally  un- 
sanctioned by  any  American  officer,  and  which  we  are  well  convinced 
they  would  reprobate  and  would  punish  in  the  most  exemplary 
manner  could  the  perpetrators  of  such  horrid  acts  be  detected. 

"  In  a  war  circumstanced  as  the  present  there  will  be  some  instances 
of  enormities  on  both  sides.  We  would  not  wish  to  particularize,  but 
doubt  not  there  are  acts  of  cruelty  frequently  committed  by  the  irreg- 
ulars of  your  army  and  are  convinced  that  on  your  part  as  well  as  our 
own  they  are  generally  to  be  attributed  to  an  ignorance  of  the  rules  of 
warfare,  and  a  want  of  discipline ;  but  the  idea  of  detaining  in  close 
custody  as  howStages  a  number  of  men  fairly  taken  in  arms  and  entitled 
to  the  benefits  of  a  solemn  capitulation  is  so  repugnant  to  the  laws  of 
war  and  the  usage  of  civilized  nations  that  we  apprehend  it  will 
rather  be  the  means  of  increasing  its  horrors  than  answering  those 
purposes  of  humanity  you  expect. 

"  As  a  most  strict  adherence  to  the  terms  of  our  paroles  and  a 
firm  reliance  on  your  honor,  have  been  the  only  reasons  of  our  being 
in  your  power  at  present,  we  trust  that  upon  equitable  proposals 
being  made  for  our  exchange  by  General  Greene,  no  objections  will 
be  raised  but  every  thing  done  to  bring  the  matter  to  the  most  speedy 
issue." 

To  General  Greene  these  officers  wrote,  inclosing  a  copy 
of  Balfour's  letter,  and  saying  that  should  it  fall  to  the  lot 
of  all  or  any  of  them  to  be  made  victims  agreeable  to  the 
menaces  therein  contained,  they  had  only  to  regret  that 
their  blood  could  not  be  disposed  of  more  to  the  advance- 
ment of  the  glorious  cause  to  which  they  had  adhered.^ 

The  cartel  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners  which  had  been 
agreed  on  on  the  3d  of  May  was  very  general  in  its  terms. 
It  provided  that  regular  troops  should  be  exchanged  for 
regulars,  and  militia  for  militia.    That  men  enlisted  for  six 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  535 ;  Gibbes's  Documentary 
Hist,  (1781-82),  72-77  ;  The  Boyal  Gazette,  May  19,  1781. 


362  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

months  and  upwards  in  Continental  or  State  service  shoul  1 
be  looked  upon  as  regulars.  But  the  practical  working  of 
the  exchange  was  left  to  the  commissaries  of  prisoners  on 
either  side.  The  first  delivery  of  American  prisoners  were 
to  embark  at  Charlestown  on  or  before  the  loth  of  June  for 
Jamestown  on  the  James  River,  where  the  first  delivery  of 
British  prisoners  should  embark  on  or  about  the  first  week 
in  July,  and  sail  immediately  to  the  nearest  British  port.^ 
This  arrangement  was  no  doubt  made  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina  Continental  troops,  who  had 
been  imprisoned  since  the  capitulation  of  Charlestown. 
Upon  the  execution  of  the  cartel  Major  Hyrne,  the  Ameri- 
can commissary  of  prisoners,  proceeded  to  Cliarlestown, 
where  he  met  Major  Fraser,  the  British  commissar}^ 

One  better  qualified  for  the  duties  of  this  mission  than 
the  American  commissary  could  not  have  been  selected.  He 
was  liberal  in  all  his  ideas,  and  where  reason  would  justify 
concession,  willing  to  yield  and  conciliate ;  but  against  the 
encroachments  of  arrogance  and  injustice,  firm  as  adamant. 

The  British,  appreciating  the  great  advantage  which 
they  had  in  the  character  and  influence  of  many  of  the 
individuals  within  their  power,  were  little  disposed  to  lib- 
erate them,  and  so  to  encounter  the  effect  of  their  return 
to  their  compatriots.  Especially  was  this  the  case  in  re- 
gard to  the  exiles  at  St.  Augustine,  and  those  in  the  prison 
ships  in  the  harbor.  These  latter  Major  Hyrne  was  in 
the  constant  habit  of  visiting,  and  at  last  informed  them 
that  his  efforts  to  relieve  them  would,  according  to  appear- 
ances, prove  altogether  abortive ;  and  tliat  they  must  en- 
deavor to  support  with  patience  and  fortitude  the  evils 
they  were  destined  to  endure.  But  one  hope  remains, 
he  added,  of  bringing  the  business  to  a  happy  conclusion, 
and  that  should  be  made  without  delay. 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  198,  200. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  o63 

The  British  officers  who  had  been  captured  by  Sumter, 
Marion,  and  Lee  had  all  been  paroled  and  allowed  to  re- 
turn to  Charlestown.  Of  these  there  were  a  very  consid- 
erable number,  and  they  all  were  enjoying  the  comforts 
and  society  of  the  town;  while  our  officers  were  confined, 
some  to  narrow  limits  at  Haddrell's  Point,  without  society, 
and  with  scarcely  the  means  of  support,  others  to  the  hor- 
rors of  the  prison  ships,  while  the  civil  prisoners  were  exiles 
far  away.  Returning  to  his  quarters.  Major  Hyrne  ad- 
dressed a  note  to  every  British  officer  in  the  town  enjoying 
the  benefit  of  a  parole,  desiring  that  preparation  should  be 
made  to  accompany  him  immediately  to  the  American 
camp,  as  every  effort  to  accomplish  an  exchange  had  proved 
fruitless.  It  could  not  be  expected  that  liberty  should  be 
longer  granted  to  them  while  men  of  the  first  character 
and  highest  respectability  in  the  State  were  subjected  to 
all  the  miseries  and  inconveniences  of  the  most  rigorous 
confinement. 

The  effect  of  this  notice  was  instantaneously  perceptible. 
The  doors  of  the  commandant  were  besieged  by  petitioners, 
many  of  high  rank  and  powerful  connection,  soliciting  him 
to  relinquish  his  opinions,  and  by  relaxing  in  due  season 
his  severity,  save  them  from  the  horrors  and  destruction 
which  they  deemed  inevitable  should  they  be  compelled  in 
the  month  of  June  to  remove  into  the  sickly  interior  coun- 
try. The  clamorous  and  reiterated  remonstrances  of  these 
officers  could  not  be  resisted ;  the  dictates  of  policy  yielded 
before  them.  The  terms  of  exchange  were  speedily  ad- 
justed.i  On  the  22d  of  June  Major  Hyrne  and  Major 
Fraser,  the  commissaries,  gave  notice  that  in  pursuance  of 
power  delegated  to  them  to  carry  into  execution  the  articles 
of  cartel  made  on  the  3d  of  May,  they  had  agreed  "that  all 

1  Garden's  Anecdotes,  407,  408  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II, 
200. 


364  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  militia,  prisoners  of  war,  citizens  of  America  taken 
by  the  British  arms  in  the  Southern  Department  from  the 
commencement  of  the  present  war  to  the  15th  day  of  this 
present  month  of  June,  shall  be  immediately  exchanged  for 
all  the  militia,  prisoners  of  war,  subjects  of  Great  Britain 
taken  by  the  American  army  in  the  said  department  within 
the  above-mentioned  term."  ^ 

There  is  no  allusion,  it  will  be  observed,  in  this  agreement 
as  to  the  regulars  on  either  side.  These,  it  is  to  be  supposed, 
were  regarded  as  coming  under  the  general  terms  of  the 
cartel  itself.  It  is  further  to  be  observed  that  the  ex- 
change was  only  provided  for  those  taken  prior  to  the 
15th  of  June.  One  cause  of  delay  in  the  execution  of  this 
agreement  was  that  the  British  insisted  upon  excepting  from 
the  cartel  five  individuals,  three  of  whom,  Captain  Postell, 
Messrs.  Smith  and  Skirving,  like  Pickens,  Hampton,  and 
Hayne,  had  resumed  their  arms  after  having  been  paroled 
and  taken  protection.  Who  the  others  were  is  not  known. 
Postell's  case  was  by  the  consent  of  the  commissaries 
referred  to  General  Greene,  but  he  does  not  appear  ever 
to  have  been  released.^ 

Notice  of  the  exchange  was  immediately  sent  to  St. 
Augustine,  where  it  was  received  on  the  7th  of  July.  It 
is  time,  therefore,  to  recur  to  the  exiles  there,  and  to 
inquire  how  they  had  fared  in  the  ten  months  of  their 
imprisonment  at  that  distant  place. 

iGibbes's  Doc.  Hist.  (1781-82),  122,  123;  The  Boyal  Gazette,  J\ine 
29,  1781. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  201 ;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist. 
(1781-82),  128  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion,  113. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

1781 

Upon  the  capitulation  of  Charlestown  in  May,  1780,  a 
military  government  had  been  established  by  the  British. 
A  commandant  was  appointed  to  superintend  the  affairs 
of  the  province.  His  powers,  says  Ramsay,  were  as 
undefined  as  those  of  the  American  committees,  which 
took  place  in  the  early  stages  of  the  dispute  between 
Great  Britain  and  America,  while  the  Royal  governments 
were  suspended  and  before  the  popular  establishments 
were  reduced  to  system.  To  soften  the  rigid  and  forbid- 
ding aspect  of  this  new  mode  of  administration  and  as  far  as 
possible  to  temper  it  with  the  semblance  of  civil  authority, 
a  Board  of  Police  for  the  summary  determination  of  dis- 
putes was  instituted.  James  Simpson,  the  attorney- 
general  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  —  one 
of  those  who  had  refused  to  sign  the  Association  when 
ordered  by  the  General  Committee  in  July,  1775,  and  con- 
sequently had  been  compelled  to  leave  the  province,  —  had 
returned  and  was  put  at  the  head  of  the  board  as  Inten- 
dant.  One  of  the  first  measures  of  this  board  was  the 
preparation  of  a  table  ascertaining  the  depreciation  of  the 
paper  currency  at  different  periods,  from  which  the  friends 
of  the  Royal  government  who  had  sustained  losses  by 
paper  payments  were  induced  to  hope  for  reimbursement.^ 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  261,  263  ;  Hist,  of  So.  Ca. 
in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  226,  228. 


366  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

This  measure,  observes  the  author  from  whom  we  quote, 
though  just  in  itself,  was  productive  of  unexpected  and 
serious  consequences,  fatal  to  the  reviving  fondness  for  the 
Royal  interest.  Among  the  new-made  British  subjects 
many  were  found  who  had  been  great  gainers  by  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  American  bills  of  credit.  These,  when  a 
second  payment  of  their  old  debts  was  proposed,  by  this 
scheme,  were  filled  with  astonishment  and  dismay.  From 
the  circumstances  of  the  country  a  compliance  with  it  was 
to  the  most  opulent  extremely  inconvenient,  and  to  the 
multitudes  absolutely  impracticable.  The  paper  currency, 
before  the  reduction  of  Charlestown,  had  supplanted  the 
use  of  gold  and  silver  and  banished  them  from  circulation. 
The  ravages  of  war  had  desolated  the  country  and  deprived 
the  inhabitants  of  the  means  of  payment.  Creditors 
became  clamorous  from  their  long  arrears  of  interest,  and 
debtors  had  either  lost  their  property  or  could  not  exchange 
it  for  one-half  of  its  value.  Many  suits  were  brought  and 
great  numbers  ruined.  The  distresses  of  the  reclaimed 
subjects  within  the  British  lines  were  in  many  instances 
greater  than  those  of  their  unsubdued  countrymen  who 
had  forsaken  all  in  the  cause  of  liberty.  Then,  when  the 
Americans  had  recovered  possession  of  a  considerable  part 
of  the  State,  it  began  to  be  feared  that  upon  their  ultimate 
success  the  proceedings  of  the  board  would  be  reversed. 
This  redoubled  their  difficulties.  Creditors  became  more 
pressing,  and  at  the  same  time  the  increasing  uncertainty  of 
British  titles  induced  a  depreciation  of  real  property  not  far 
behind  that  of  the  American  paper  currency.  Fear  and  inter- 
est, says  Ramsay,  had  brought  many  of  their  new  subjects 
to  the  British  standard ;  but  in  consequence  of  the  plans 
they  adopted  in  a  little  time  both  these  powerful  motives  of 
human  actions  drew  in  an  opposite  direction.  The  Ameri- 
cans pursued  a  different  line  of  conduct.     In  every  period 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  367 

of  the  contest  they  sacrificed  the  few  creditors  to  the 
many  debtors.  The  true  Whigs  who  suffered  on  this 
score  consoled  themselves  with  the  idea  that  their  coun- 
try's good  required  it,  and  that  this  w^as  the  price  of 
independence.  A  disposition  to  suffer  in  behalf  of  the 
Royal  interest  was  not  so  visible  among  the  professed 
adherents  to  British  government.  That  immediate  justice 
might  be  done  to  a  few  great  distress  was  brought  on 
many,  and  the  cause  of  his  Britannic  Majesty  injured  be- 
yond reparation.  1 

General  Patterson,  as  has  appeared,  had  been  the  first 
commandant  at  Charlestown.  Upon  his  removal  from  the 
province  Lieutenant-Colonel  Nisbet  Balfour,  who  at  first 
had  been  sent  to  the  command  of  the  District  of  Ninety 
Six,  was  recalled  to  Charlestown  and  placed  in  command 
there.  Of  the  character  and  services  of  this  officer  we 
have  before  spoken.^  Between  himself  and  Lord  Rawdon 
there  was  no  good  will.  He  established  his  headquarters 
in  the  house  of  Miles  Brewton,  the  same  in  which  Josiah 
Quincy  had  been  entertained  in  1773,  as  related  in  a 
former  volume ;  ^  and  there,  it  was  said  of  him,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  his  new  office,  he  displayed  all  the  frivolous  self- 
importance  and  insolence  which  are  natural  to  little  minds 
when  puffed  up  by  sudden  elevation,  and  employed  in 
functions  to  which  their  abilities  are  not  equal.  By  the 
subversion  of  every  form  of  the  popular  government, 
which  had  been  set  up  without  any  proper  civil  establish- 
ment in  its  place,  he  with  a  few  coadjutors  assumed  and 
exercised  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  powers  over 
citizens  in  the  same  manner  as  over  the  common  soldiery 
under   their   command.     A   series   of  proclamations   and 

1  Ramsay,  supra. 

2  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolntion  (McCrady),  715. 
^Hist.  of  So.  Ga.  under  Boy.  Gov.  (McCrady),  706. 


368  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

orders  were  issued,  not  only  in  violation  of  the  terms  of 
capitulation  of  the  city,  but  as  little  in  accord  with  the 
principles  of  the  British  constitution  as  of  those  of  justice, 
equity,  and  humanity.  Upon  the  surrender  of  the  city 
it  had  been  stipulated,  it  will  be  remembered,  that  the 
militia  should  be  regarded  as  prisoners  upon  parole,  which 
parole,  so  long  as  they  observed  it,  should  secure  them 
from  being  molested  in  their  property  by  the  British  troops. 
The  spirit  and  intent  of  this  stipulation  unquestionably  was 
that  as  long  as  the  prisoners  observed  their  paroles  they  might 
pursue  their  business  and  avocations,  and  be  protected  in 
so  doing  in  their  property.  But,  presumably,  now  drawing 
a  distinction  between  one's  property  and  one's  calling  or 
business,  Balfour,  as  we  have  seen,  now  ordered  that  no 
paroled  prisoner  should  be  allowed  to  work  at  any  trade 
or  profession  for  the  support  of  himself  or  his  family. 
A  more  iniquitous  measure  can  scarcely  be  conceived. 
Prisoners  on  parole  confined  to  the  town  were  thus  denied 
the  right  to  make  a  living  in  the  town,  unless  they  would 
forswear  the  cause  and  return  to  the  allegiance  of  the 
king.  For  light  offences  and  upon  partial  and  insufficient 
information  citizens  were  arrested  and  confined  without 
trial  of  any  kind. 

The  middle  part  of  the  cellar  under  the  Exchange  —  now 
the  old  post-office  in  Charleston — was  the  place  chosen  for 
the  imprisonment  of  those  arrested.  It  was  called  the  pro- 
vost. The  dampness  of  this  unwholesome  place,  without  any 
means  of  warming  its  temperature,  caused  great  sickness 
and  suffering  and  some  deaths  among  those  confined  within 
its  walls.  It  was  in  this  place  that  the  citizens  arrested  in 
August,  1780,  and  sent  to  St.  Augustine,  were  first  con- 
fined. Citizens  marched  from  distant  parts  of  the  interior 
in  irons  were  thrown  into  this  prison.  Among  these  were 
Colonel  Starke,  Colonel  Beard,  Captain  Moore,  and  Mr. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  369 

Pritchard.^  So,  too,  were  here  confined  Major  Peter  Boc- 
quet,  Samuel  Legare,  Jonathan  Sarrazin,  Henry  Peronneaii, 
and  Daniel  Stevens.  Not  only  men,  but  women  also 
were  indiscriminately  cast  into  this  place.  Among  these, 
two  young  ladies  of  most  excellent  character  and  respect- 
able connections,  on  a  groundless  suspicion  of  giving  in- 
telligence to  the  Americans,  were  for  a  short  time  subjected 
to  the  same  indignity.  These  were  crowded,  together  with 
the  sick  laboring  under  contagious  diseases,  wi1;h  negroes, 
deserters,  women  of  infamous  character,  to  the  number  of 
fifty-six,  within  narrow  limits.  So  little  regard  was  paid 
to  decency  that  the  calls  of  nature  could  not  be  satisfied 
but  in  the  open  view  of  both  sexes  promiscuously  collected 
in  one  apartment.  The  American  state  prisoner  and  the 
British  felon  shared  the  same  fate.  The  former,  though 
for  the  most  part  charged  with  nothing  more  than  an 
active  execution  of  the  laws  of  the  State,  or  having  spoken 
words  disrespectful  or  injurious  to  the  British  officers  or 
government,  or  of  corresponding  with  the  Americans,  suf- 
fered indignities  and  distresses  in  common  with  those  who 
were  accused  of  crimes  tending  to  subvert  the  peace  and 
existence  of  society.  Such  was  the  administration  of  police 
by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Balfour.  His  conduct  on  the  whole 
tended  greatly  to  strengthen  the  Whig  interest  and  to 
diminish  the  number  of  Royalists.^ 

Far  from  subduing  the  spirit  of  those  whose  circum- 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  264.  Colonel  Robert 
Starke,  who  had  commanded  the  lower  regiment  of  militia  in  the  fork  of 
Saluda  and  Broad  rivers.  (See  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  devolution,  1 775-80 
[McCrady],  123.)  There  were  two  other  Starkes,  or  Starks,  who  fought  in 
the  Revolution  under  Sumter,  Captain  John  Starke  and  a  lad,  Robert 
Starke.  Johnson's  Traditions,  502,  503.  Colonel  Jonas  Beard,  who  had 
succeeded  Colonel  Starke  in  command  of  his  regiment.  James  Pritchard 
had  been  sheriff  of  Ninety  Six  IJistrict. 

2  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  301-302  ;  Ramsay's  licvolutiofi,  261, 
265  ;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.,  121. 

VOL.    IV.  —  2  B 


370  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

stances  had  compelled  their  remaining  in  the  town,  Bal- 
four's treatment  but  strengthened  them  in  the  cause  of 
freedom.  This  was  especially  the  case  with  the  women. 
In  this  crisis  of  danger  to  the  liberties  of  America,  says 
Ramsay,  the  ladies  of  South  Carolina  conducted  them- 
selves with  more  than  Spartan  magnanimity.  They  gloried 
in  the  appellation  of  rebel  ladies ;  and  though  they  with- 
stood repeated  solicitation  to  grace  public  entertainments, 
yet  they  crowded  on  board  prison  ships  and  other  places  of 
confinement  to  solace  their  suffering  countrymen.  While 
the  conquerors  were  regaling  themselves  at  concerts  and 
assemblies,  they  could  obtain  very  few  of  the  fair  sex  to 
associate  with  them ;  but  no  sooner  was  an  American 
officer  introduced  as  a  prisoner  than  his  company  was 
sought  for  and  his  person  treated  with  every  possible 
mark  of  attention  and  respect.  On  other  occasions  the 
ladies  in  a  great  measure  retired  from  the  public  eye, 
wept  over  the  distresses  of  their  country,  and  gave  every 
proof  of  the  warmest  attachments  to  its  suffering  cause. 
In  the  height  of  the  British  conquests,  when  poverty  and 
ruin  seemed  the  unavoidable  portion  of  every  adherent  to 
the  independence  of  America,  the  ladies  in  general  dis- 
covered more  firmness  than  the  men.  Many  of  them,  like 
guardian  angels,  preserved  their  husbands  from  falling  in 
the  hour  of  temptation  when  interests  and  convenience 
had  almost  got  the  better  of  honor  and  patriotism.  Among 
the  numbers  who  were  banished  from  their  families  and 
whose  property  was  seized  by  the  conquerors  many  ex- 
amples could  be  produced  of  ladies  parting  cheerfully  with 
their  sons,  husbands,  and  brothers,  exhorting  them  to  forti- 
tude and  perseverance ;  and  repeatedly  entreating  them 
never  to  suffer  family  attachments  to  interfere  with  the  duty 
they  owed  to  their  country.  When  in  the  progress  of  the 
war  they  were  also  comprehended  under  a  general  sentence 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  371 

of  banishment,  with  equal  resolution,  they  parted  with  their 
native  country  and  the  many  endearments  of  home,  —  fol- 
lowed these  husbands  into  prison  ships  and  distant  lands, 
where,  though  they  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of  giving, 
they  were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  receiving  charity. 
They  renounced  the  present  gratification  of  wealth  and 
the  future  prospects  of  fortunes  for  their  growing  offspring, 
adopted  every  scheme  of  economy,  and,  though  born  to 
affluence  and  habituated  to  attendance,  betook  themselves 
to  hard  labor. ^  The  foreign  historian,  Botta,  concludes 
a  paraphrase  of  this  passage  from  Ramsay  with  the  obser- 
vation that  to  this  heroism  of  the  women  of  Carolina  is 
principally  to  be  imputed  that  the  love  and  even  the 
name  of  liberty  were  not  totally  extinguished  in  the 
Southern  provinces.^ 

The  exiles  in  St.  Augustine,  though  with  the  exception 
of  Christopher  Gadsden,  who  was  still  immured  in  the  dun- 
geon, because  of  his  refusal  to  give  another  parole,  and  for 
a  part  of  the  time  also  of  Jacob  Read,  for  some  alleged 
offence,  upon  their  paroles  were  allowed  some  freedom, 
but  within  very  narrow  limits,  in  the  inner  square  of  the 
town.  They  were  obliged  to  attend  roll-calls  twice  a  day 
at  the  State  House.  Their  correspondence  which  they 
were  allowed  to  carry  on  with  their  friends  and  families  in 
Carolina  had  all  to  pass  under  the  eye  and  examination  of 
the  commandant  of  the  garrison.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
town  were  advised  by  the  military  authorities  to  have  no 
communication  with  them,  which  advice,  coming  from  the 
source  it  did,  was  scarcely  less  than  an  order,  and  was  so 
regarded  and  obeyed.  Soldiers  were  forbidden  to  associ- 
ate with  them  under  penalty  of  court-martial.     The  lieu- 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  123,  125. 

2  Botta's  History  of  the  Independence  of  the  U.S.  of  Am.^  vol.  II,  261, 
262. 


372  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

tenant-governor  of  East  Florida,  John  Moultrie,  the  brother 
of  General  Moultrie,  though  closely  connected  with  some  of 
the  prisoners,  and  doubtless  well  known  to  most  of  them, 
kept  himself  aloof.  The  fourth  Sunday  after  their  arrival 
the  different  messes  met  together  for  religious  worship,  and 
Mr.  James  Hamden  Thomson,  the  schoolmaster,  read  some 
prayers  from  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and  a  sermon  from  a  printed  collection,  no  way 
relating  to  their  present  position.  The  next  Sunday  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Lewis  delivered  a  very  moving  discourse,  it  is 
said,  of  his  own  from  the  text,  "  If  I  am  bereaved  of  my 
children,  I  am  bereaved."  These  services  it  was  proposed 
to  continue  every  Sunday;  but  on  the  following  Friday 
evening  Mr.  Brown,  the  commissary  of  prisoners,  informed 
the  gentlemen  that  the  governor  had  taken  offence  at 
their  having  public  worship,  and  that  it  was  his  pleasure 
they  should  discontinue  it  in  the  future.  This  they  re- 
fused to  do  unless  prohibited  in  writing.  Upon  this  Gov- 
ernor Tonyn  wrote  to  Mr.  Brown,  the  commissary,  that 
having  been  informed  that  the  rebel  prisoners,  forgetful  of 
their  parole,  had  very  improperly  held  private  meetings  for 
the  purpose  of  performing  divine  service  agreeable  to 
their  rebellious  principles,  and  as  such  proceedings  were 
thought  highly  injurious  to  his  Majesty's  government,  and 
of  a  seditious  tendency,  and  an  infringement  of  their 
pledge  of  honor,  he  desired  the  commissary  to  acquaint 
them  that  such  meetings  would  not  be  allowed,  that 
seats  would  be  provided  for  their  reception  in  the  parish 
church,  where  it  was  expected  that  they  would  observe 
the  utmost  decency.  The  commissary  was  also  directed 
to  say  that  messages  delivered  by  him  were  of  sufficient 
authenticity ;  that  it  was  in  compliance  with  his  request 
only  that  the  governor  condescended  to  write  this  letter. 
The  exiles  were  then  put  in  the  position  of  having  to 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  373 

forego  all  religious  services  or  joining  in  the  prayer  for  his 
Majesty  the  king,  and  against  their  own  cause. 

But  upon  the  whole,  as  matters  usually  go  with  pris- 
oners, they  had  little  cause  of  complaint  beyond  the  fact 
that  they  were  deprived  of  their  liberty  and  exiled  from 
their  families  and  homes.  The  commissary  of  prisoners, 
Mr.  William  Brown,  a  Scotchman  by  birth,  was  an  up- 
right, honorable  king's  man,  faithful  to  his  Majesty,  but 
ever  kind  and  indulgent  to  the  prisoners  under  his  care  as 
far  as  was  consistent  with  his  duty.  When  entire  satis- 
faction could  not  be  afforded,  he  would  soothe  their  feel- 
ings and  console  them  in  a  friendly  and  gentlemanly 
manner.^  The  messes  into  which  they  were  divided 
were  furnished  with  rations.  Their  servants  whom 
they  were  allowed  to  retain  were  permitted  to  fish  for 
their  subsistence ;  and  they  were  allowed  to  purchase 
other  supplies  in  Charlestown,  where  they  had  agents  for 
the  purpose,  who  shipped  the  goods  to  them.  The  men- 
tion of  a  few  items  from  one  of  the  orders  to  the  agent  of 
one  of  the  messes  will  indicate  that  their  living  at  first  was 
by  no  means  that  of  anchorites.  "  Hh^  of  Old  Jamaica 
Rum,  divided  into  2  or  more  small  casks,  &c.,  to  be  packed 
up  in  Rice  Barrils  among  corn  &c."  "A  quarter  Pipe 
Port  wine,"  "  8  dozen  Fowls  full  grown  and  as  many  lay- 
ing hens  among  them  as  possible."  "  Two  gross  Fresh  Laid 
Eggs  to  be  packed  up  in  Fine  Salt."  "  A  Cheshire  Cheese," 
"  6  Quart  bottle  Sweet  oil."  "  A  case  of  5  gallons  French 
Brandy."  "12  Packs  Playing  cards."  "Fish  Hooks, 
&ct.,  &ct."2  The  order  amounted  to  £85  sterling,  to  be 
paid  by  their  friends  and  families  in  Charlestown. 

But  all  this  was  very  much  changed  before  their  release. 
Their  estates  were  confiscated  under  the  orders  elsewhere 
mentioned,  and  their  families  and  friends  at  home  had  no 

1  Johnson's  Traditions,  p.  321.         2  Diary  (MS.)  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr. 


374  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

means  with  which  to  supply  their  necessities,  still  less 
their  luxuries. 

By  the  spring  of  1781  the  condition  of  the  exiles  had 
changed  very  much  for  the  worse,  the  sequestration  of 
their  estates  had  cut  off  supplies  from  home,  and  deprived 
them  of  the  means  of  paying  for  the  lodgings  they  had 
been  allowed  to  have  for  themselves  at  great  expense. 
Upon  the  arrival,  therefore,  of  Colonel  Allured  Clarke,  the 
Commandant-in-chief  of  the  provinces  of  Georgia  and  East 
Florida,  with  reenforcements,  under  an  expectation  of  an 
invasion  of  the  Spaniards,  the  exiles  memorialized  him, 
stating  their  inability  longer  to  pay  for  their  lodgings,  — 
that  they  had  been  informed  by  the  commandant  of 
Charlestown,  both  previous  to  their  removal,  and  since 
their  arrival,  that  they  should  be  supplied  with  full  ra- 
tions ;  but  those  received  were  found  to  be  insufficient, 
not  only  for  their  comfortable,  but  even  necessary,  support, 
and  submitting  to  him  whether  from  this  state  of  matters 
they  might  not  reasonably  expect  to  be  accommodated 
with  quarters  and  competent  supplies.  They  represented 
that  the  paroles  given  were  effectual  ties  upon  their  honor 
without  the  annoyance  of  daily  roll-calls,  and  asked  for  an 
extension  of  their  limits.  This  application  was  partly 
answered  by  a  permit  to  any  ten  of  them  to  fish  daily 
upon  the  river  within  certain  limits  at  any  time  between 
gun-fire  in  the  morning  and  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

The  information  of  the  execution  on  the  3d  of  May  of 
the  cartel  for  a  general  exchange  of  all  prisoners  had 
reached  St.  Augustine,  and  the  exiles  were  all  in  hopes  of 
a  speedy  release,  when  on  the  5th  of  July  they  received  an 
order  to  prepare  themselves  to  march  to  the  St.  John 
River,  where  they  would  be  provided  with  boats  to  take 
them  to  Savannah.  Great  consternation  was  caused  by 
this  order.     The  exiles  met  and  again  memorialized  the 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  375 

commandant,  now  Colonel  Glazier,  to  consider  the  distress 
the  execution  of  such  an  order  must  necessarily  involve  — 
that  many  among  them  were  aged  and  infirm,  and  all  since 
their  captivity  more  or  less  enervated  by  an  inactive  and 
sedentary  life,  that  in  such  circumstances  a  fatiguing 
march  in  that  sultry  season,  through  a  wilderness  desti- 
tute of  every  accommodation,  even  of  water,  and  now  to 
be  confined  for  near  a  fortnight  on  small  boats  exposed  to 
every  inclemency  of  the  weather,  would  be  attended  with 
fatal  consequences  to  many. 

To  this  memorial  no  other  answer  was  given  than  a 
verbal  declaration  of  the  commissary,  that  as  official 
orders  might  be  on  board  a  man-of-war  then  off  the  bar, 
the  commandant  deferred  their  journey  until  such  orders 
should  come  to  his  hands.  Early  Saturday,  the  7th,  sig- 
nals were  hung  out  that  several  vessels  were  in  sight,  but 
the  winds  being  contrary  they  did  not  get  up  to  the  town 
until  Sunday  evening,  when,  to  the  great  joy  of  the  exiles, 
they  brought  the  intelligence  of  the  exchange  agreed  upon 
on  the  22d  of  June.^  But  the  joy  at  the  prospect  of  their 
near  release  was  greatly  embittered  when,  upon  receiving 
The  Royal  Crazette  of  the  27th,  they  found  published  therein 
the  following  order  by  Colonel  Balfour  :  — 

"  As  many  persons  lately  exchanged  as  prisoners  of  war  and  others 
who  have  long  chose  to  reside  in  the  colonies  now  in  rebellion,  have 
notwithstanding  (such  there  absence)  wives  and  families  still  remain- 
ing here  the  weight  of  which  on  all  accounts  is  equally  impolitick  as 
inconsistent  should  longer  be  suffered  to  rest  on  the  government  estab- 
lished here  and  the  resources  of  it : 

"The  commandant  is  therefore  pleased  to  direct  that  all  such 
women  and  children  and  others  as  above  described  should  quit  the 
town  and  province  on  or  before  the  first  day  of  August  next  ensuing ; 
of  which  Regulation  such  persons  are  hereby  ordered  to  take  notice 
and  to  remove  then  accordingly." 

1  Diary  (MS.)  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr. 


376  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

On  Monday  morning  Mr.  Brown,  the  commissary,  in- 
formed the  exiles  that  Colonel  Glazier  had  received 
directions  from  Colonel  Balfour  to  permit  the  whole  of  the 
compan}^  to  depart  from  St.  Augustine  as  prisoners  ex- 
changed either  for  Virginia  or  Philadelphia  as  they  should 
choose,  but  by  no  means  to  grant  them  liberty  to  stop  or 
even  to  touch  at  Charlestown.  And  that  for  their  accom- 
modation he  was  to  furnish  them  with  one  small  schooner, 
which  was  not  large  enough  even  to  carry  their  baggage. 

The  exiles  thus  found  the  day  of  their  deliverance  to 
which  they  h^d  looked  forward  with  so  much  joy  a  day  of 
lamentation  and  distress.  What  was  to  become  of  their 
families,  turned  out  of  their  habitations  which  had  been 
secured  to  them  by  the  terms  of  capitulation  ?  How  were 
the  helpless  women  and  Children  to  find  the  means  of  obey- 
ing the  order  for  their  departure  ?  And  as  if  purposely  to 
cut  off  all  remaining  means  of  doing  so,  Balfour  followed 
up  his  former  cruel  orders  with  the  following,  issued  on 
the  11th; — 

"  The  commandant  is  pleased  to  direct  that  no  person  living  under 
the  rebel  government  shall  have  liberty,  or  grant  power  to  others 
for  so  doing  to  let  or  lease  any  house  within  this  town  without  a 
special  licence  for  so  doing  as  it  is  intended  to  take  all  such  houses 
as  may  be  wanted  for  the  publick  service,  paying  to  the  owners  of 
those  secured  by  the  capitulation  a  reasonable  rent  for  the  same,  as 
by  those  means  government  will  be  enabled  to  reinstate  its  firm 
friends  in  possession  of  their  own  houses." 

In  consequence  of  this  mandate,  those  who  adhered  to 
the  cause  of  America  were  turned  out  of  their  houses, 
which  were  taken  possession  of  by  the  British  in  violation 
of  public  faith,  and  there  was  scarce  an  instance  of  com- 
pensation being  allowed  for  the  seizure  of  their  property. 
Scenes  of  the  greatest  distress  ensued.  More  than  a  thou- 
sand persons,  says  Ramsay,  were  exiled  from  their  homes. 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  377 

and  thrown  on  the  charity  of  strangers  for  their  support. 
Husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  some  of  whom 
had  been  for  several  months  separated  from  each  other, 
were  not  permitted  to  soothe  their  common  distress  by 
being  together,  but  were  doomed  to  have  their  first  inter- 
view among  strangers  in  a  distant  land.^ 

The  exiles  represented  to  Colonel  Glazier  the  insuf- 
ficiency of  the  vessel  which  had  been  designated  for  their 
voyage  to  Philadelphia,  who  the  next  day  offered  instead 
that  he  would  let  them  have  another  schooner,  the  East 
Florida^  about  sixty  tons,  on  condition  they  would  consent 
to  pay  ,£100  sterling  towards  her  hire.  He  ultimately 
agreed,  however,  to  let  them  have  the  vessel  free  of  charge, 
the  government  assuming  its  hire;  and  that  he  would 
order  four  weeks'  provisions  to  be  laid  in  for  the  passage. 
Whereupon  the  exiles  secured  another  vessel,  a  brigan- 
tine,  the  Nancy^  at  an  expense  of  200  guineas,  made  up 
amongst  them  all,  and  divided  their  party  into  two  bodies 
of  thirty  and  thirty-one,  keeping  as  near  as  could  be  the 
arrangement  of  their  messes.  They  then  cast  lots  for  the 
vessels ;  the  brigantine  Nancy  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  party 
of  thirty-one,  of  whom  Christopher  Gadsden  was  the  chief, 
and  the  schooner  East  Florida  to  that  of  the  lot  of  thirty, 
of  whom  John  Neufville  was  the  chief.  Both  vessels 
dropped  down  the  river  with  the  prisoners  aboard  on  the 
17th  of  July,  but  did  not  get  over  the  bar  until  the  19th. 
The  schooner  reached  the  capes  of  Delaware  on  the  28th 
and  the  brig  on  the  2d  of  August. 

On  the  25th  of  July  many  of  the  families  who  had  been 
banished  by  the  order  of  the  commandant  of  the  town 
embarked  for  Philadelphia  in  a  brig  commanded  by  Cap- 
tain Downham  Newton,  with  a  passport  making  her  a  flag 
of  truce.  How  the  funds  were  raised  to  provide  for  their 
1  Ramsay's  BevoluUon  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  300-301. 


378  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

removal  is  illustrated  in  a  copy  of  the  petition  of  Mrs. 
Mary  De  Saussure,  wife  of  the  exile,  Daniel  De  Saussure. 
It  is  addressed  "  To  the  Honorable  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Nisbet  Balfour,  Commandant  at  Charlestown,"  and  is  as 
follows :  — 

"  The  humble  petition  of  Mary  De  Saussure  wife  of  Daniel  De 
Saussure  showeth  that  your  petitioner  is  unable  in  her  present  cir- 
cumstances to  provide  for  the  expense  that  must  necessarily  attend 
the  removal  of  herself  and  family  from  their  Province ;  therefore 
prays  your  honor  will  be  pleased  to  grant  her  the  indulgence  of  mak- 
ing sale  of  the  furniture  belonging  to  her  dwelling  house  and  kitchen, 
also  a  riding  chaise  and  to  grant  her  such  further  indulgence  as  to 
your  honor  shall  seem  meet  and  your  petitioner  as  in  duty  bound  will 
ever  pray,"  etc. 

The  petition  was  by  the  commandant  referred  to  the 
Board  of  Police,  which  after  a  week's  consideration  gra- 
ciously indorsed,  "  Mrs.  De  Saussure  has  permission  to  sell 
her  furniture  and  chaise  as  requested." 

The  brig,  containing  ten  or  twelve  families,  numbering 
nearly  one  hundred  and  thirty  souls,  had  a  prosperous  voy- 
age, and  reached  the  capes  on  the  2d  of  August,  and  with 
a  fair  wind  continued  its  course  up  to  New  Castle. 
Another  brig  had  been  in  sight  all  day  pursuing  the  same 
course  a  little  behind  them.  The  two  brigs  came  to  anchor 
in  the  evening  close  together ;  when  William  Johnson,  on 
that  from  St.  Augustine  hailed  that  from  Charlestown, 
and  was  answered,  "  From  Charlestown  "  in  the  well-known 
voice  of  the  captain.  They  immediately  recognized  each 
other.  "  Is  that  you,  Downham  Newton?"  "Ay;  is  that 
you,  William  Johnson?  we  have  your  family  on  board." 
Many  other  manly  voices,  says  the  Traditions^  immediately 
and  anxiously  inquired  each  for  his  own  family,  and  a 
joyful  meeting  then  took  place  of  many  dear  ones  thus 
providentially  brought  together.^ 

1  Johnson's  Traditions,  332-333. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  379 

Balfour's  cruel  edict,  banishing  from  the  town  the  wives 
and  families  of  those  who  would  not  sully  their  honor  and 
conscience  by  taking  protection,  compelled  the  removal 
of  a  large  number  of  men,  women,  children,  and  servants 
to  Philadelphia,  besides  the  exiles.  These  took  with  them 
such  of  their  movable  property  as  they  could  by  permission 
and  convenience  remove.  In  all  they  numbered  670  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  71  servants.  To  meet  the  neces- 
sities of  these  exiles.  Congress  on  the  23d  of  July  came  to 
the  following  resolution :  — 

"  Resolved  that  five  suitable  persons  be  appointed  and  authorized 
to  open  a  subscription  for  a  loan  of  Thirty  Thousand  Dollars  for  the 
support  of  such  of  the  States  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  as  have 
been  driven  from  their  country  and  possessions  by  the  enemy;  the 
said  States  respectively  by  their  delegates  in  Congress  pledging  their 
faith  for  the  repayment  of  the  sum  which  shall  be  received  by  their 
respective  citizens  as  soon  as  the  legislatures  of  the  said  States  shall 
severally  be  in  condition  to  make  provision  for  so  doing  and  Congress 
hereby  guaranteeing  this  obligation." 

The  commissioners  under  the  resolution.  Colonel  John 
Bayard,  Dr.  James  Hutchinson,  Mr.  George  Meade,  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Bingham,  and  Mr.  George  Barge  wrote  letters  to  the 
executives  of  Virginia,  Maryland,  New  Jersey,  New  York, 
and  the  New  England  States,  soliciting  their  help  towards 
the  filling  up  of  this  loan  and  engaging  the  interest  to  be 
paid  on  the  money  so  lent.  But  from  the  general  scarcity 
of  hard  cash  in  these  several  States,  —  as  it  was  said,  —  no 
assistance  was  obtained  from  any  other  State  than  Massa- 
chusetts, whose  executive,  issuing  an  appeal  to  be  published 
in  all  the  churches,  raised  the  sum  of  16296,  including 
Governor  Hancock's  own  subscription  of  |400.  There 
were  also  two  special  donations  of  SlOO  each  from  this 
State.  There  being  more  money  in  the  State  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, $15,132  were  by  86  persons  subscribed  on  the  loan 


380  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

and  $3312  by  236  persons  on  donation  chiefly  obtained  by 
the  address  of  Messrs.  Bayard  and  Hutchinson,  to  whom  the 
necessitous  Carolinians  and  Georgians  were  greatly  indebted 
for  their  existence.  But  these  subscriptions,  amounting 
together  to  124,940,  were  by  no  means  all  paid.  By  the 
13th  of  November  following,  Mr.  Meade,  the  treasurer  of 
the  commission,  had  received  and  turned  over  to  the  com- 
mittee of  the  exiles  appointed  to  receive  it,  17568.72.  But 
great  or  small,  these  contributions  were  of  great  service  to 
the  exiles,  particularly  so  to  those  who  could  not  get  into  any 
kind  of  business  so  as  to  earn  their  support,  and  without 
which  some  would  have  been  near  to  starvation.^ 

Most  of  the  officers.  Continental  and  militia,  released  by 
the  exchange,  who  were  landed  at  Jamestown  immediately 
proceeded  overland  to  rejoin  their  countrymen,  —  and  when 
they  could  their  former  command,  —  to  carry  on  the  war, 
which  had  now  taken  a  more  favorable  turn  for  the  cause 
on  account  of  which  they  had  so  long  endured  captivity. 

The  question  as  to  the  condition  of  those  who  had  given 
paroles  or  taken  Royal  protection  and  afterwards  resumed 
their  arms  on  the  American  side  became  more  and  more 
important  to  the  British  authorities.  As  Sumter,  Marion, 
and  Harden  appeared  again  and  again  within  their  lines, 
each  time  they  carried  off  with  them  new  recruits,  those 
who  seized  the  opportunity  of  avenging  themselves  for 
injuries  received  or  faith  broken  while  in  the  power  of  the 
enemy  to  whom  they  had  surrendered  upon  terms.  It 
could  not  have  escaped  the  observation  of  Balfour  that  the 
two  inroads  which  had  been  made  nearest  to  the  lines  of 
the  town  were  each  led  by  an  officer  who  had  renewed  his 
allegiance  to  the  king  since  the  capitulation  of  Charles- 
town,  and  had  lately  gone  over  to  the  American  side  and, 
taking  his  life  in  his  hands,  had  accepted  a  commission  in  the 
1  Diary  (MS.)  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr. 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  381 

field.  Colonel  Hayne  had  surprised  the  outpost  within 
seven  miles  of  the  lines  of  the  town,  and  Wade  Hampton 
had  dashed  in  even  two  miles  nearer,  and,  like  Hayne,  had 
carried  off  his  prisoners.  Some  great  example  must  be 
made  to  strike  terror  into  those  who,  yet  remaining  quiet 
under  their  parole,  might  be  contemplating  similar  conduct. 
Wade  Hampton  had  escaped  with  his  spoils,  but  unfortu- 
nately Hayne  had  fallen  into  their  hands.  Postell's  case 
had  in  some  way  been  referred  to  General  Greene  by  the 
respective  commissaries  of  prisoners,  and  must  for  the 
present  at  least  be  held  in  abeyance.  The  question  was, 
What  should  be  done  with  Hayne  ?  Balfour  had  now  time 
to  give  his  attention  to  the  matter,  and  he  was  prompt  in 
deciding  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

1781 

Colonel  Hayne  had  been  captured  on  the  8th  of  July. 
But  Balfour,  the  valiant  officer  whose  services  during  the 
campaign  in  South  Carolina  were  confined  within  the  gates 
of  the  town,  had  been  too  busily  engaged  issuing  edicts  for 
the  government  of  the  citizens  under  his  power,  annoying 
the  American  prisoners  in  their  exchange,  banishing  the 
families  of  the  exiles,  and  harassing  them  in  their  depar- 
ture, to  give  the  time  and  attention  to  this  case  which  its 
importance  demanded.  He  held  it  back,  as  it  were,  as  a 
choice  morsel  on  which  the  cruel  vindictiveness  of  his 
nature  should  have  full  leisure  to  expend  itself.  There 
was  also  a  stronger  motive  for  delay.  Balfour  had  risen 
to  his  high  position  in  the  British  army  through  the  influ- 
ence of  Sir  William  Howe ;  but  he  had  no  such  interest 
with  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  who  succeeded  Howe,  nor  with 
Lord  Cornwallis,  who  commanded  the  Southern  Depart- 
ment. On  the  other  hand,  Lord  Rawdon  was  a  favorite 
with  both  of  these,  while  between  his  lordship  and  him- 
self there  existed  no  kindly  relations,  nor  was  the  question 
as  to  their  respective  commands  in  the  province  free  from 
doubt.  There  was  a  question,  too,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, as  to  rank  between  Lord  Rawdon,  who  was  a  full 
colonel  in  a  provincial  regiment,  and  Balfour,  who  was  a 
lieutenant  colonel  in  the  regular  line.  Colonel  Balfour 
deemed  it  important,  therefore,  before  he  proceeded  to  the 
extremity  he  contemplated,  to  commit  Lord  Rawdon  to  his 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  383 

purpose.  His  lordship,  after  withdrawing  from  Ninety  Six, 
had  halted,  it  will  be  recollected,  at  Orangeburgh,  where 
he  remained  at  the  time.  To  him,  therefore,  Balfour  wrote, 
telling  of  the  rising  under  Hayne  in  the  rear  of  his  army, 
and  how  luckily  it  had  been  crushed.  He  represented  the 
imperative  necessity  of  repressing  the  disposition  to  similar 
acts  of  treachery,  as  he  termed  them,  by  making  an  exam- 
ple of  the  individual  who,  he  said,  had  planned  as  well  as 
headed  this  revolt,  and  who  had  fallen  into  his  hands ;  and 
solicited  Rawdon's  concurrence  that  it  might  vouch  to  Sir 
Henry  Clinton,  with  whom  he  was  on  ill  terms,  for  the 
public  policy  of  the  measure.^ 

For  nearly  three  weeks  Hayne  lay  in  the  provost  —  the 
basement  of  the  Exchange  —  awaiting  his  fate,  about 
which  the  two  British  officers  were  corresponding.  The 
result  he  must  have  anticipated.  Doubtless  he  fully 
realized,  as  did  his  other  compatriots  who  acted  similarly, 
when  at  last  he  accepted  Governor  Rutledge's  commission, 
raised  his  regiment,  and  joined  Harden,  that  he  dared  the 
gallows  as  well  as  the  guns  of  the  enemy,  and  that  for  him 
there  would  be  a  short  shrift  if  taken.  It  was  a  curious 
coincidence  that,  while  he  lay  there  in  the  provost  among 
the  common  felons,  awaiting  his  doom,  his  friend.  Dr.  Ram- 
say, to  whom  he  had  been  so  careful  to  explain  the  circum- 
stances under  which  he  had  been  compelled  to  renew  his 
allegiance  to  the  king,  and  Richard  Hutson,  his  brother-in- 
law,  together  with  the  other  exiles,  most  of  whom  were  his 
friends  and  associates,  were  at  sea  passing  Charlestown 
bar  on  their  voyage  to  Philadelphia,  just  released  from  their 
long  detention  at  St.  Augustine,  but  still  exiles  from 
home. 

Lord  Rawdon  declares  that  he  had  no  conception  that 

1  Letter  of  Marquis  of  Hastings,  Appendix  to  Memoirs  of  the  War  of 
1776  (Lee),  616. 


384  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

a  question  could  possibly  be  raised  as  to  the  justice  of 
Hayne's  execution,  and  that  he  replied  to  Balfour  that 
there  was  no  doubt  as  to  the  necessity  of  making  the 
example,  to  which  he  would  readily  give  the  sanction  of 
his  name.  He  very  soon  followed  this  reply  and  came 
himself  to  Charlestown.  Garden,  in  his  Anecdotes^  charges 
on  the  authority  of  a  British  subject  of  great  respectability, 
then  in  the  town,  that  Lord  Rawdon's  retirement  at  this 
time,  when  his  services  were  most  required  to  contend 
against  the  increasing  difficulties  of  the  situation,  leaving 
the  conduct  of  the  army  to  those  who  were  altogether 
unequal  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  time,  was  much 
criticised;  and  that  the  plea  of  ill  health  upon  which  it 
was  based  was  seriously  questioned.^  But  the  gallant 
career  of  this  nobleman  throughout  the  last  year's  cam- 
paign renders  the  truth  of  such  a  charge  extremely  improb- 
able, while  the  arduous  services  he  had  rendered,  much 
of  which  had  been  in  the  swamps  of  the  Congaree  and 
Wateree,  might  well  have  affected  his  health.     To  add  to 

1  Lord  Rawdon,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Doyle,  and  his  lady  sailed  for  Eng- 
land on  the  21st  of  August,  1781  (The  Royal  Gazette).  "Lord  Rawdon 
applied,  but  in  vain,  to  Dr.  Alexander  Garden,  a  physician  of  high  reputa- 
tion, for  a  certificate,  testifying  to  his  inability  to  continue  in  the  field. 
This  statement  is  made  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  James  Penman,  a  British 
subject  of  great  respectability,  who  further  assured  the  author  of  these 
Memoirs,  that  the  anger  of  Dr.  Garden  was  so  highly  excited  by  the 
scandalous  dereliction  of  duty  by  Lord  Rawdon  that,  on  the  manifesta- 
tion of  a  design  by  many  Tories  to  pay  him  the  compliment  of  a  farewell 
address,  he  boldly  protested  against  it,  declaring  that  if  they  would 
draw  up  a  remonstrance  reprobating  his  determination  to  quit  the  army 
at  a  moment  that  he  knew  that  there  was  not,  in  the  Southern  service, 
a  man  qualified  to  command  it,  his  name  should  be  the  first  inserted." 
—  Garden'' s  Anecdotes,  254. 

Dr.  Alexander  Garden,  referred  to  by  the  author  of  the  Anecdotes,  was 
his  father ;  the  father  and  son  espousing  opposite  sides,  Dr.  Garden  re- 
fused any  association  with  his  son,  the  author,  and  left  the  province,  going 
to  England,  where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  385 

which  his  subsequent  career  at  home  and  abroad  precludes 
the  idea  that  he  would  without  good  reason  have  deserted 
the  Royal  cause  at  such  a  time.  But  however  brilliant  his 
military  conduct  in  America,  on  the  Continent,  and  in 
India,  and  notwithstanding  the  character  for  humanity 
which  he  afterwards  established  in  Parliament,  his  com- 
mand in  South  Carolina  was  signalized  by  the  greatest 
severity.  The  difference  between  Balfour  and  himself 
was  that  he  braved  the  dangers  of  the  field,  in  which  he 
exercised  his  vigorous  discipline  upon  friend  and  foe  alike, 
while  Balfour  indulged  his  cruelty  in  the  security  of  the 
walls  of  the  city.  It  must  be  added  that  in  this  matter, 
from  whatever  motive,  or  under  whatever  influence,  his 
lordship's  conduct  was  characterized  by  indecision  and 
want  of  candor,  both  at  the  time  and  in  his  subsequent 
justification  of  his  connection  with  it. 

Lord  Rawdon  left  the  field  immediately  after  the  action 
at  Quinby  Bridge,  and  the  withdrawal  of  the  American 
forces  to  the  Congaree.  He  states  that  on  his  arrival 
application  was  at  once  made  to  him  by  a  number  of  ladies 
to  save  Colonel  Hayne  from  his  impending  death,  and  that, 
ignorant  of  the  complicated  nature  and  extent  of  the  crime, 
he  incautiously  promised  to  use  his  endeavors  towards 
inducing  Lieutenant-Colonel  Balfour  to  lenity;  that  in 
pursuance  of  this  promise  a  petition  to  be  signed  by  the 
ladies  was  drawn  up  by  one  of  the  officers  of  the  staff,  he 
believed  by  Major  Barry,  the  deputy  adjutant  general,^  to 
serve  as  a  basis  for  his  address  to  the  commandant.  It 
thus  appears  that  the  petition  of  the  ladies  was  prepared 
with  his  knowledge  and  concurrence  by  a  staff  officer.  Is 
it  not  curious  then  that  the  paper  so  drawn  should  be  ad- 
dressed, "  To  the  right  honorable  Lord  Rawdon^  Commander- 

1  Henry  Barry,  captain  Fifty-second  Regiment,  serving  as  deputy 
adjutant  general  in  South  Carolina. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2  c 


386  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

in-chief  of  Ids  Majesty's  forces  in  South  Carolina^  and 
to  Colonel  Balfour^  commandant  at  Charlestoivn,'^  if  so  be 
that  he  was  not  m  fact  the  ranking  and  commanding  offi- 
cer over  Balfour  as  he  asserts.^  The  petition,  which  was 
generally  signed  by  the  ladies,  appealed  most  earnestly  to 
these  officers  for  the  life  of  the  unfortunate  gentleman. 
The  paper  was  drawn  up,  as  Lord  Rawdon  declares,  as  "  a 
step  gratifying  to  me  ...  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  my 
address  to  the  commandant."  But  his  lordship  had 
already  committed  himself  to  Colonel  Hayne's  execution 
by  his  letter  from  camp.  Well,  therefore,  might  Colonel 
Balfour  be  surprised  at  his  lordship's  conduct.  "  When 
I  opened  the  matter  to  him,"  says  Lord  Rawdon,  "he 
appeared  much  astonished,  detailed  to  me  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case  with  which  I  had  been  completely 
unacquainted,  requesting  me  to  inform  myself  more  mi- 
nutely upon  them,  and  earnestly  begged  me  to  ponder  as 
to  the  effect  to  which  forbearance  from  visiting  such  an 
offence  with  due  punishment  (sure  to  be  ascribed  to 
timidity)  must  unavoidably  produce  on  the  minds  of  the 
inhabitants.     It  was  a  grievous  error  in  me,"  he  continues, 

1  Letter  of  Marquis  of  Hasting,  formerly  Lord  Rawdon,  to  Colonel 
Henry  Lee,  Appendix  to  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  615.  The 
Marquis  writes  :  "  Lieutenant-Colonel  Balfour  was  my  senior  in  the  army 
list,  and  my  provisional  rank  of  colonel  held  for  the  purpose  of  connec- 
tion with  the  regiment  raised  by  me  did  not  alter  that  relation,  as  the 
colonels  of  the  provincial  establishments  were  subordinate  to  the  youngest 
lieutenant  colonel  of  the  line.  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  in  order  to  give  me  the 
management  of  affairs  in  South  Carolina,  subsequently  promoted  me  as  a 
brigadier  general  of  provincials,  but  we  had  no  intimation  of  this  till  the 
commission  arrived  after  I  had  actually  embarked  for  England.  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Balfour  would,  therefore,  at  all  events,  have  commanded 
me."  This  letter  was  written  the  24th  of  June,  1813,  thirty-odd  years 
after  the  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne,  and  in  this  time  the  marquis  had 
certainly  forgotten  the  facts.  As  we  have  before  seen,  he  was  recognized 
by  Lord  Cornwallis  as  commanding  all  the  other  officers  in  South  Carolina, 
and  so  the  adjutant  general  of  the  department  understood. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  387 

"  that  I  did  not  at  once  yield  to  the  reasoning  .  .  .  and 
to  the  conviction  which  it  could  not  but  impress,  instead 
of  still  attempting  to  realize  the  hope  which  I  had  suffered 
the  ladies  so  loosely  to  entertain.  I  unluckily  persevered 
in  the  effort  to  reconcile  a  p-^rdon  with  some  appearance 
of  propriety."  There  was  an  interview  between  Mrs. 
Peronneau,  Colonel  Hayne's  sister-in-law,  the  wife  of 
Henry  Peronneau,  who  was  a  Loyalist,  and  Lord  Rawdon, 
in  which  he  says  he  frankly  told  her  what  had  passed 
between  himself  and  Colonel  Balfour,  stating  the  embar- 
rassment in  which  he  found  himself  from  the  enormity  of 
the  transgression,  but  adding  that,  unless  there  should  be 
an  intervention  from  General  Greene  he  would  try  if  the 
I  difficulty  could  be  removed.  He  states  that,  as  a  mode  of 
gaining  time,  he  solicited  Colonel  Balfour  to  have  the  par- 
ticulars of  the  case  ascertained  by  a  court  of  inquiry  for 
his  (Rawdon's)  satisfaction,  alleging  the  chance  —  though, 
he  declares,  he  did  not  really  believe  the  existence  of  any 
such  —  that  circumstances  might  have  been  distorted  by 
the  animosity  of  Hayne's  neighbors. 

This  was  the  situation  when,  on  Thursday  morning,  the 
26th  of  July,  Colonel  Hayne  received  a  note  from  Major 
Fraser,  the  town  major,  26th,  saying:  — 

"Sir:  I  am  charged  by  the  commandant  to  inform  you  that  a 
council  of  general  officers  will  assemble  to-morrow  at  ten  o'clock,  in 
the  hall  of  the  Province,  to  try  you." 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  first  notice  was  of  the  sitting 
of  a  court  to  try  Colonel  Hayne.  This  is  important  in 
view  of  what  follows.  For  in  the  evening  of  the  same 
day,  he  received  another  notice  as  follows  :  — 

"  Sir  :  I  am  ordered  by  the  commandant  to  acquaint  you  that 
instead  of  a  council  of  general  officers,^  as  is  mentioned  in  my  letter 

1  No  doubt  field  officers  were  meant.  This  note  is  dated  Thursday  even- 
ing, 27th  July,  1781,  but  it  is  evident  that  this  was  a  mistake  ;  it  should 
have  been  26th. 


388  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  this  morning,  a  court  of  inquiry,  composed  of  four  general  officers 
and  four  captains,  will  be  assembled  to-morrow  at  ten  o'clock  in  the 
province  hall,  for  the  purpose  of  deter mininy  under  wliat  point  of  view 
you  ought  to  he  considered. 

"  You  will  immediately  be  allowed  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  any 
person  that  you  choose  to  appoint  will  be  permitted  to  accompany 
you  as  your  counsel  at  the  same  hour  and  place."  ^ 

Colonel  Hayne  was  entirely  misled  by  the  change  in 
the  tenor  of  these  notices.  He  assumed  that  the  purpose 
was  to  interpose  a  court  of  inquiry,  the  military  form  of 
proceeding  in  the  nature  of  the  civil  proceedings  of  a 
grand  jury,  to  ascertain  if  there  really  existed  any  ground 
for  putting  him  upon  trial  at  all,  instead  of  putting  him 
at  once  upon  trial,  as  was  intended  by  the  first  notice. 
Alas  I  he  was  terribly  mistaken.  Lord  Rawdon's  letter 
suggests  the  explanation  and  significance  of  the  change. 
"  This  tribunal,  although  a  court  of  inquiry,"  he  says, 
^'•was  the  same  form  of  investigation  as  had  been  used  in 
the  case  of  Major  AndrS,'"^  And  so  it  was.  General 
Greene,  now  commanding  in  South  Carolina,  had  been 
president  of  the  board  before  which  Andre  had  been 
taken,  and  that  board  had  been  ordered  "to  report  a 
precise  state  of  his  case,  and  to  determine  in  what  character 
he  was  to  be  considered,  and  to  what  punishment  he  was 
liable."  3 

Had  he  known  these  circumstances  and  understood  the 
change.  Colonel  Hayne  would  at  once  have  read  in  it  his 
death  sentence.  He  would  have  understood  that  he  was 
to  receive  the  same  measure  as  Andrd  had.  Before  that 
court  he  was   accordingly  taken  on   Saturday,  the  28th. 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  511,  512  ;  Gibbes's  Docu- 
mentary Hist.  (1781-82),  109. 

2  Letter  of  Lord  Rawdon,  then  Earl  of  Moira,  to  Colonel  Lee, 
Appendix  to  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  617. 

8  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  IV,  263. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  889 

Of  the  proceedings  before  it  he  has  left  the  account  in 
his  letter  of  protest  to  Lord  Rawdon  and  Colonel  Balfour. 

"...  Having  never  entertained  any  other  idea  of  a  Court  of 
Enquiry,  nor  heard  of  any  other  being  formed  of  it,  than  of  its 
serving  merely  to  precede  a  council  of  war  or  some  other  tribunal  for 
examining  the  circumstances  more  fully,  excepting  in  the  case  of  a 
spy,  and  Mr.  Jarvis,  lieutenant  marshal  to  the  Provost,  not  having 
succeeded  in  finding  the  person  whom  I  named  for  my  council,  I  did 
not  take  the  pains  to  summon  any  witnesses,  though  it  would 
have  been  in  my  power  to  have  produced  many;  and  I  presented 
myself  before  the  council  without  any  assistance  whatever.  When 
I  was  before  that  assembly  I  was  farther  convinced  that  I  had  not 
been  deceived  in  my  conjectures ;  and  I  found  that  the  members  of 
it  were  not  sworn  nor  the  witnesses  examined  on  oath,  and  all  the 
members  as  well  as  every  person  present  might  easily  have  perceived 
by  the  questions  which  I  asked  and  by  the  whole  tenor  of  my  conduct 
that  I  had  not  the  least  notion  that  I  was  tried  or  examined  upon 
an  affair  in  which  my  life  or  death  depended." 

An  American  staff  officer,  it  is  said,  then  a  prisoner  on 
parole,  present  at  the  court,  stated  that  the  proceedings  be- 
fore the  board  were  the  most  summary  imaginable,  and  the 
proofs  confined  exclusively  to  the  fact  that  Colonel  Hayne 
had  taken  protection,  and  afterwards  resumed  his  arms. 
An  address  made  by  Colonel  Hayne  to  his  troops,  breath- 
ing, as  this  officer  declares,  the  noblest  sentiments  of 
patriotism  and  humanity,  and  the  testimony  of  the  officer 
who  took  him,  were  almost  the  only  evidence  offered  in 
the  case.^  The  address  referred  to,  made  by  him  to  his 
officers,  was  that  made,  it  is  said,  when  at  the  solicitation 
of  his  neighbors  and  the  inhabitants  generally  of  the  dis- 
trict, to  resume  a  hostile  position  and  become  their  leader, 
he  at  last  consented  to  do  so.  It  contained  this  honorable 
and  open  declaration,  "  That  he  could  only  be  induced  to 

1  Article  entitled  "Execution  of  Colonel  Isaac  Hayne,"  Southern 
BevieiG,  Charleston,  1828,  vol,  I,  92.  The  name  of  the  staff  officer 
quoted  is  not  mentioned. 


390  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

comply  with  their  wishes  by  obtaining  a  solemn  promise 
from  all  who  were  to  serve  under  him  that  an  immediate 
stop  should  be  put  to  every  unnecessary  severity  ;  a  de- 
sideratum the  more  to  be  insisted  upon  as  he  was  resolved 
that  exemplary  punishment  should  be  inflicted  on  every 
individual  who  should  indulge  in  pillage  or  commit  any 
act  of  inhumanity  against  his  foe."  When  this  paper  was 
presented  to  Major  McKenzie,^  who  sat  as  president  of  the 
tribunal,  it  is  said  that,  with  great  expression  of  sensibility, 
he  requested  the  prisoner  "  to  retain  it  till  he  was  brought 
before  the  court-martial  that  was  to  determine  his  fate," 
assuring  him  "  that  the  present  court  were  only  directed 
to  inquire  whether  or  not  he  acknowledged  himself  to  be 
the  individual  who  had  taken  protection."  ^ 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  court  and  the  prisoner  alike 
supposed  that  this  tribunal  was  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name 
a  mere  court  of  inquiry,  making  a  preliminary  examina- 
tion upon  what  further  proceedings  were  to  be  had.  But 
in  this  they  were  both  mistaken — if  not  intentionally  mis- 
led. Lord  Rawdon  declares  that  it  was  held  at  his  sug- 
gestion, and  that  his  purpose  was  to  gain  time.  But  his 
conduct  on  the  occasion  will  scarcely  bear  out  this  (his) 
recollection  thirty  years  after.  The  court  sat  on  Friday 
the  27th,  when  it  had  Colonel  Hayne  before  it,  and  ap- 
parently again  on  Saturday,  probably  to  consult.  What 
it  actually  did  determine  is  not  known,  for  Lord  Rawdon 
took  the  record  of  its  proceedings  with  him  when  he  sailed 
shortly  after  for  Europe,  and,  being  captured  at  sea,  he 
threw  it  overboard.  If  the  story  be  true  that  the  presi- 
dent of  the  court  of  inquiry  returned  to  Colonel  Hayne 

1  Probably  Andrew  McKenzie,  mentioned  in  list  No.  3  of  the  Confisca- 
tion Acts  {Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  VI,  631),  i.e.  as  one  who  had  accepted  < 
a  commission  in  the  "Royal  Militia  (Ibid.,  vol.  IV,  519). 

2  Garden's  Anecdotes  of  the  Bevolution,  252.  The  author  regrets  ex- 
ceedingly that  no  copy  of  this  address  can  now  be  found. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  391 

his  address  to  his  regiment,  that  he  might  present  it  be- 
fore the  court  which  would  try  him — and  Colonel  Hayne's 
possession  of  the  paper  after  appearing  before  the  court 
of  inquiry  is  strong  corroboration  that  it  was  so  —  it  is 
scarcely  probable  that  the  finding  of  the  court  was  suffi- 
cient of  itself  to  warrant  the  execution  which  followed. 
And  indeed  this  was  admitted  by  Rawdon  and  Balfour  as 
will  directly  appear.  So  far  from  availing  himself  of  the 
opportunity  for  delay  which  might  easily  have  been  ob- 
tained by  allowing  the  investigation  which  Lord  Rawdon 
declares  his  purpose  was  to  have  made,  on  Sunday,  the  day 
after  the  court  had  apparently  adjourned,  he  promptly 
joined  Balfour  in  the  following  judgment :  — 

"  To  Mr.  Hayne  in  the  Provost  Prison 

"  Memorandum 

"  Sunday  29  July  1781 

"  The  Adjutant  of  the  town  will  be  so  good  as  to  go  to  Colonel  Hayne 
in  Provost  Prison  and  inform  him  that  in  consequence  of  the  court  of 
enquiry  held  yesterday  and  the  preceding  evening  Lord  Rawdon  and 
the  commandant  Lieutenant  Colonel  Kisbet  Balfour  have  resolved  upon 
his  execution  on  Tuesday  the  thirty-first  instant  at  six  o'clock,  for  hav- 
ing been  found  under  arms  raising  a  regiment  to  oppose  the  British 
government,  though  he  had  become  a  subject  and  had  accepted  the 
protection  of  that  government  after  the  reduction  of  Charlestown." 

Availing  himself  of  the  permission  to  be  represented  by 
counsel,  as  he  supposed  before  a  court  yet  to  sit,  Colonel 
Hayne  had  engaged  the  services  of  Mr.  John  Colcock  a 
lawyer  then  practising  in  the  town.  Upon  learning  of 
this  order  Mr.  Colcock  immediately  prepared  a  written 
opinion  denying  the  authority  of  these  officers  thus  to  pass 
upon  the  life  or  death  of  the  accused.  He  advised  (1) 
that  in  the  notice  given  of  an  examination  before  a  court 
of  inquiry  there  was  not,  even  according  to  the  rules  of 
martial  law,  a  sufficient  certainty  nor  any  express  accusa- 
tion which  might  be  the  object  of  the  court's  inquiry  or 


392  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  the  accused's  defence ;  (2)  that  no  enemy  can  be  sen- 
tenced to  death  in  consequence  of  any  military  article,  or 
any  other  martial  process,  without  a  previous  trial,  except 
spies,  who  by  the  articles  of  war  were  expressly  debarred 
from  that  right ;  (3)  that  no  subject  could  or  ought  to  be 
deprived  of  his  life,  liberty,  or  fortune  unless  by  the  award 
of  his  peers ;  that  there  was  no  law  which  could  authorize 
a  judgment  like  that  which  these  officers  had  taken  upon 
themselves  to  pronounce ;  that  every  man  was  deemed  in- 
nocent until  his  guilt  was  proved;  that  being  taken  in 
arras  did  not  argue  criminality  so  far  as  to  hinder  the  cul- 
prit from  making  his  defence,  either  by  proving  a  commis- 
sion or  upon  any  other  ground ;  that  many  of  those  who 
had  taken  up  arms  had  been  acquitted  on  such  proofs. 
(4)  "  In  consideration  of  the  principles  above  adduced," 
Mr.  Colcock  concluded,  "I  am  positively  of  opinion  that 
taking  you  in  the  light  of  an  enemy  (not  of  a  spy),  the 
process  carried  on  against  you  is  not  lawful;  but  if  you 
are  to  be  considered  as  a  subject,  such  proceedings  mili- 
tate against  and  are  diametrically  contrary  to  all  laws." 

This  opinion  Colonel  Hayne  sent  to  Lord  Rawdon  and 
Colonel  Balfour,  with  an  earnest  but  dignified  remon- 
strance against  this  summary  proceeding.  As  already 
quoted,  he  declared  that  he  had  entertained  no  idea  that 
he  was  before  a  court  for  trial  when  taken  before  the  court 
of  inquiry.  He  admitted  that  in  case  of  spies  a  court  of 
inquiry  is  all  that  can  be  necessary,  because  the  simple 
fact  whether  the  person  is  or  is  not  a  spy  is  all  that  is  to 
be  ascertained;  but  that  no  such  accusation  as  that  had 
been  made  against  him. 

"  Judge  then,  my  Lord  and  Sir,"  he  urged,  "  of  the  astonishment  I 
must  have  been  in  when  I  found  that  they  had  drawn  me  by  surprise 
into  a  procedure  tending  to  judgment  without  knowing  it  to  be  such, 
and  deprived  me  of  the  ability  of  making  a  legal  defence,  which  it 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  393 

would  have  been  very  easy  for  me  to  have  done,  founded  both  in  law 
and  in  fact;  when  I  saw  myself  destitute  of  the  assistance  of  counsel 
or  of  witnesses ;  and  when  they  abruptly  informed  me  that  after 
the  procedure  of  the  court  I  had  been  condemned  to  die,  and  that  in 
a  few  days.  Immediately  upon  receiving  this  notice  I  sent  for  the 
lawyer  whom  I  had  originally  chosen  for  my  counsel.  I  here  inclose 
his  opinion  concerning  the  legality  of  the  process  against  me ;  and  I 
beg  that  I  may  be  permitted  to  prefer  myself  to  him.  I  can  assure 
you  with  the  utmost  truth  that  I  both  have  and  had  many  reasons  to 
urge  in  my  defence  if  you  will  grant  me  the  favor  of  a  regular  trial ; 
if  not  (which  I  cannot  however  suppose  from  your  justice  and  equity) 
I  earnestly  entreat  that  my  execution  may  be  deferred  that  I  may  at 
least  take  farewell  of  my  children  and  prepare  myself  for  the  dreadful 
change.     I  hope  that  you  will  return  me  a  speedy  answer,"  etc. 

The  last  request  of  Colonel  Hayiie  was  complied  with 
at  one  o'clock  on  Monday,  the  30th.  Major  Fraser 
brought  him  the  fatal  answer.     It  was  this :  — 

"  I  have  to  inform  you  that  your  execution  is  not  ordered  in  con- 
sequence of  any  sentence  from  a  court  of  enquiry,  but  by  virtue  of 
the  authority  with  which  the  Commander-in-chief  in  South  Carolina 
and  the  commanding  officer  in  Charlestown  are  invested.  And  their 
resolves  on  the  subject  are  unchangeable." 

Here  it  will  be  observed  that  Lord  Rawdon  allows  him- 
self to  be  styled  officially  Commander-in-chief  in  South 
Carolina,  repudiates  the  court  which  he  suggested,  and 
promptly  joins  Colonel  Balfour,  the  commanding  officer 
in  Charlestown,  in  assuming  the  responsibility  of  the  exe- 
cution, upon  which  he  declared  they  were  inexorably 
determined.  The  terseness,  vigor,  and  temper  of  this 
paper  is  scarcely  compatible  with  the  tenderness  he  appears 
at  first  to  have  exhibited  to  Mrs.  Peronneau,  and  for  which 
he  subsequently  claimed  the  credit. 

Colonel  Hayne,  upon  receiving  this  curt  reply,  appealed 
again  to  Major  Fraser  that  he  would  seriously  entreat  these 
officers  to  grant  a  respite  that  he  might  have  time  to  send  for 
his  children,  and  take  of  them  the  last  farewell.    This  ap- 


394  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

peal  was  promptly  and  sternly  refused.  At  three  o'clock 
the  town  adjutant,  Mr.  Cooper,  brought  him  for  answer  that 
his  request  was  rejected;  and  on  Tuesday,  the  31st,  at  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  deputy  provost  marshal  brought 
him  word,  says  Hayne,  "  that  it  was  time  for  me  to  pre- 
pare for  death,  as  he  had  just  received  orders  to  that  effect, 
and  that  I  was  to  leave  my  apartment  at  five  o'clock." 

In  less  than  half  an  hour,  however,  Major  Fraser  came 
in  and  delivered  the  following  message :  — 

"  Colonel  Hayne,  I  am  to  acquaint  you  that  in  consequence  of  a 
petition  signed  by  Governor  Bull  and  many  more,  as  also  your  prayer 
of  yesterday  and  the  humane  treatment  shown  by  you  to  the  British 
prisoners  who  fell  into  your  hands,  you  are  respited  for  forty-eight 
hours." 

Colonel  Hayne  thanked  the  officer  for  the  respite,  as 
affording  him  the  opportunity  of  seeing  his  children  once 
more,  which  he  so  much  desired.  The  major  had  gone 
but  a  few  moments  when  he  returned  to  say  that  he  had 
forgot  part  of  his  message ;  this  was,  says  Hayne,  that  if 
General  Greene  "should  offer  to  expostulate  in  my  favor 
with  the  commanding  officer,  from  that  instant  the  respite 
would  cease,  and  I  should  be  ordered  for  immediate 
execution."  ^ 

During  the  solemn  period  of  his  reprieve  which  ensued, 
the  unfortunate  gentleman  bore  himself  with  dignity  and 
composure,  and  on  his  last  evening  declared  that  "  he  felt 
no  more  alarmed  at  death  than  at  any  other  occurrence 
which  is  necessary  and  unavoidable."  In  the  meanwhile 
the  most  earnest  efforts  had  been  made  to  move  the  two 
officers  upon  whom  depended  his  life  or  death.  Mrs. 
Peronneau,  his  sister-in-law,  accompanied  by  his  children, 
waited  on  Lord  Rawdon  in  the  great  parlor  of  the  Brewton 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  511,517;  Gibbes's  Doctt- 
mentaryHist.  (1781-82),  111-112. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  395 

mansion,  and  on  their  bended  knees  implored  him  to  spare 
their  father  and  brother.^  Lieutenant-Governor  Bull,  who 
had  recently  returned  from  England,  and  a  great  number 
of  inhabitants,  both  Loyalists  and  Americans,  interceded 
for  his  life .2  There  was  one  exception  to  this  generous 
effort,  and  that  was  in  the  case  of  Sir  Egerton  Leigh,  who, 
having  been  absent  since  the  commencement  of  the 
war,  and  who  for  his  conduct  in  the  preceding  trou- 
bles had  received  his  knighthood  in  1772,  had  now 
returned  on  the  fleet  which  brought  the  timely  reenforce- 
ment  to  the  British  cause  in  June.^  Lord  Rawdon  gives 
this  statement  of  the  origin  and  failure  of  the  appeal.  He 
states  that,  in  compliance  with  his  wishes,  two  gentlemen 
of  known  and  just  influence  undertook  to  try  whether  a 
petition  for  pardon  might  not  be  procured  from  a  respec- 
table number  of  Loyalists.  That  they  first  applied  to  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Bull,  who  consented  to  sign  the  petition 
provided  tJie  attorney -general^  Sir  Egerton  Leigh,  would 
do  so.  The  answer  of  Sir  Egerton  Leigh  was  that  he  loould 
hum  his  hand  off  rather  than  do  an  act  so  injurious  to  the  king's 
service.  That  Lieutenant-Governor  Bull's  conditional  prom- 
ise of  course  fell  to  the  ground,  though  he  subsequently, 
from  some  dupery  practised  upon  his  age,  joined  his  name 
with  those  of  certain  of  the  most  active  and  avowed 
partisans  of  the  American  cause.*  A  very  different  account 
of  the  affair  was  given  upon  the  appearance  of  this  state- 
ment by  his  lordship.  It  is  that  Governor  Bull,  who  was 
in  a  very  feeble  condition,  suffering  from  a  chronic  malady 
which  had  afflicted  him  for  many  years,  caused  himself  to 

^Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  455. 
2  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca. ,  vol.  282. 

8  For  the  career  and  character   of  Sir  Egerton   Leigh,  see  Hist,  of 
So.  Ca.  under  Boy.  Gov.  (McCrady),  471,  et  seq. 

*  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  Appendix,  617. 


396  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

be  carried  in  a  litter  to  the  quarters  of  Lord  Rawdon,  per- 
sonally to  intercede  for  the  pardon  of  Colonel  Hayne,  but 
that  on  his  return  home  the  dejection  of  his  countenance 
too  plainly  spoke  the  ill  success  of  his  influence,  and  that  he 
exclaimed,  "The  die  is  cast,  the  unfortunate  prisoner  must 
suffer.  Lord  Rawdon  is  inexorable.  "  ^  Both  of  these  partic- 
ular and  circumstantial  statements  were  made  many  years 
after  the  event.  Neither,  therefore,  is  entitled  to  greater 
weight  than  the  circumstances  better  established  warrant. 
Judged  in  this  way.  Lord  Rawdon's  account  cannot  be 
accepted.  A  matter  of  small  consequence,  except  that  it 
furnishes  somewhat  of  a  test  of  the  accuracy  of  his  lord- 
ship's memory  in  connection  with  these  events,  is  the  fact 
that  he  speaks  of  Sir  Egerton  Leigh  as  attorney-general, 
as  if  he  then  held  that  office ;  when  in  fact  he  did  not. 
James  Simpson,  the  lieutenant  of  police  under  the 
military  government,  was  at  that  time  the  attorney-gen- 
eral of  the  province.  But  besides  the  weight  of  authority 
against  this  story,  —  besides  the  fact  that,  though  feeble  in 
health,  Governor  Bull,  who,  as  it  has  been  remarked,  had 
himself  but  recently  returned  from  Europe,  to  which  it 
may  be  added  he  soon  again  went,  and  lived  tliere  for  ten 
years,  was  by  no  means  so  old  a  man  as  to  have  lost  the 
full  possession  of  mind  and  judgment,  being  at  this  time 
not  more  than  seventy  years  of  age, — the  intrinsic  evidence 
is  clearly  against  it.  Lord  Rawdon 's  statement  of  his  con- 
duct is  itself  inconsistent  with  it  and  is  contradicted  by 
the  record.  He  denies  that  he  had  authority  over  Colonel 
Balfour,  and  claims  that  he  suggested  the  court  of  inquiry 
to  gain  time.  But  the  record  shows  that  immediately 
upon  the  adjournment  of  the  court,  Colonel  Hayne  is 
informed  by  the  town  major  of  the  sentence  of  execution 
"  by  virtue  of  the  authority  with  which  the  Oommander-in- 
1  Execution  of  Colonel  Hayne,  Southern  Hevieiv,  vol.  I,  103,  1828. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  397 

chief  and  the  commanding  officer  in  Charleston  are  in- 
vested." He  represents  that  he  was  instigating  the 
petition  for  mercy  while  his  adjutant  informs  the  prisoner 
that  the  resolutions  of  the  two  officers  "  on  this  subject  are 
fixed  and  unchanc/eahle.^^  He  represents  that  Governor 
Bull  from  old  age  was  duped  into  signing  a  petition  which 
all  other  Loyalists  refused  to  do  ;  and  yet  his  adjutant  is 
instructed  to  inform  the  prisoner  ^'that  in  consequence  of  a 
petition  signed  hy  Qovernor  Bull^  and  many  more^''  he  is 
granted  a  respite.  His  lordship  is  thus  contradicted  in 
every  particular;  his  denials  and  explanation  fix  all  the 
more  positively  the  responsibility  for  the  execution. 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  August  1,  Mr.  Cooper, 
the  town  adjutant,  came  in  and  read  the  following  written 
message,  "  Lord  Rawdon  and  Colonel  Balfour  have  con- 
sented to  grant  to  Mr.  Hayne  a  respite  for  forty-eight 
hours."  His  answer  was  that  he  thanked  them.  Colonel 
Hayne  made  one  more  request,  and  that  was  that  his  death 
might  be  that  of  a  soldier;  but  this  was  not  granted, 
though  it  appears  that  he  was  not  informed  that  it  would 
not  be.  During  his  respite  he  was  now  allowed  to  see  his 
children  and  his  friends  ;  and  his  few  remaining  hours  were 
spent  in  their  society  and  in  the  preparation  of  the  state- 
ment and  correspondence  from  which  these  facts  are  taken. 

On  the  morning  of  the  fatal  day,  the  4th  of  August,  on 
receiving  his  summons  to  proceed  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, he  delivered  the  statement  and  paper  he  had  prepared 
to  his  oldest  son,  a  youth  of  about  thirteen  years  of  age. 
"  Present,"  said  he,  "  these  papers  to  Mrs.  Edwards  with 
my  request  that  she  should  forward  them  to  her  brother 
in  Congress.  You  will  next  repair  to  the  place  of  execution, 
receive  my  body,  and  see  it  decently  interred  among  my 
forefathers."  The  father  and  son  then  took  a  final  leave. 
The   colonel's   arms  were  pinioned,  and  a  guard  placed 


398  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

round  his  person.  The  procession  moved  from  the  Ex- 
change—  now  the  old  Post-office,  at  the  foot  of  Broad  Street 
—  in  the  forenoon  of  the  4th  of  August.  The  streets  were 
crowded  with  thousands  of  spectators.  Colonel  Hayne 
walked  to  the  place  of  execution  with  such  firmness,  com- 
posure, and  dignity  as  to  awaken  the  compassion  and  to 
command  the  respect  of  all.  When  the  barrier  of  the 
town  —  the  town  gates  ^  —  was  passed,  the  gibbet  appeared 
in  sight.  To  this  moment  he  had  hoped  that  his  last  request 
as  to  the  mode  of  his  execution  would  have  been  granted, 
and  when  he  saw  the  instrument  of  ignominious  death,  for 
a  moment  he  paused,  but  immediately  recovering  his  wonted 
firmness,  moved  forward.  As  he  did  so  a  friend  whispered 
his  confidence  "  that  he  would  exhibit  an  example  of  the 
manner  in  which  an  American  can  die."  To  this  he 
answered  with  modesty  and  tranquillity,  "  I  will  endeavor 
to  do  so."  Neither  arrogating  superior  firmness  nor  betray- 
ing weakness,  he  ascended  the  cart,  unsupported  and 
unappalled.  Upon  some  movement  of  the  executioner, 
Colonel  Hayne  inquired  what  he  wanted,  and  upon  being 
informed  that  he  wished  to  pull  the  cap  over  his  eyes,  the 
colonel  replied,  "I  will  save  you  that  trouble,"  and  adjusted 
it  himself.  Then,  asked  whether  he  wished  to  say  anything, 
he  answered,  "  I  will  only  take  leave  of  my  friends  and  be 
ready."  He  then  affectionately  shook  hands  with  three 
gentlemen,  recommending  his  children  to  their  care,  and 
gave  the  signal  for  the  cart  to  move.^ 

iMr.  Charles Fraser,  in  his  Beminiscences,  p.  22,  writing  in  1854,  says, 
"I  remember  also  two  large  brick  pillars  which  stood  in  King  Street 
between  George  and  Liberty,  the  history  of  which  I  do  not  know,  but 
remember  they  were  town  gates."  Tradition  holds  that  the  place  of 
execution  was  somewhere  near  where  Pitt  Street  now  reaches  Vander 
Horst  Street  in  Charleston. 

2  Ramsay's  Revolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  282-284;  Memoirs  of  the 
War  of  1776  (Lee),  452-456. 

"  After  the  execution  his  young  son  was  permitted  to  carry  his  father's 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  399 

The  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne  aroused  the  utmost 
indignation  throughout  the  American  camp.  The  informa- 
tion of  it  was  received  by  General  Greene  in  a  letter  from 
Colonel  Harden  on  the  10th  of  August,  nearly  a  week 
after  it  had  taken  place.  There  had  been  charges  and 
counter  charges  of  ill  treatment  of  prisoners  passing 
between  Marion  and  Balfour  for  some  time.^  Marion,  for 
injuries  which  he  had  received,  had  already  vowed  retalia- 
tion ;  and  Colonel  Hayne,  being  an  officer  of  Harden's  com- 
mand and  therefore  under  Marion,  Greene  was  anxious  lest 
he  should  proceed  at  once  to  extremities  in  avenging  his 
death.2  Fortunately  the  messenger  that  brought  the  letter 
of  Harden  could  not  find  Marion,  and  so  took  it  at  once  to 
Greene,  who  was  at  the  High  Hills  of  Santee.  The  general 
immediately  wrote  to  Marion  to  withhold  action  on  his 
part,  and  informing  him  of  the  course  he  proposed  to  pur- 
sue. "  You  will  see  by  Colonel  Harden's  letter,"  he  wrote, 
"  that  the  enemy  have  hanged  Colonel  Hayne  ;  don't  take 
any  measure  in  the  matter  towards  retaliation,  for  I  don't 
intend  to  retaliate  on  the  Tory  officers^  hut  the  British.''''  He 
informed  Marion  of  his  intention  to  demand  the  reasons  of 
the  colonel's  being  put  to  death,  and  if  they  were  unsatis- 
factory, as  he  was  sure  they  would  be,  and  if  they  refused 
to  make  satisfaction,  to  publish  his  intention  of  giving  no 
quarter  to  British  officers  of  any  rank  that  might  fall  into 
his  hands.^  He  wrote  accordingly  to  Colonel  Balfour,  who 
replied  that  "  the  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne  took  place 
by  the  joint  order  of  Lord  Rawdon  and   himself ;  but  in 

body  and  inter  it  at  his  plantation  at  Ponper  (Pon  Pon),  which  was  done 
on  Sunday  evening  last  9th."  New  Jersey  Gazette^  September  26  and 
October  10.     Moore's  Diary ^  vol.  II,  468. 

1  Moultrie's  Memoirs^  vol.  II,  172. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  189. 

^GiMbQ^'s  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  125  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^ 
vol.  II,  619. 


400  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

consequence  of  the  most  explicit  directions  of  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  '  to  put  to  death  all  those  who  should  be  found  in 
arms  after  being  at  their  own  request  received  as  subjects 
since  the  capitulation  of  Charlestown,  and  the  clear  con- 
quest of  the  Province  in  the  summer  of  1780,  more 
especially  such  as  have  accepted  of  commissions  or  might 
distinguish  themselves  in  inducing  a  revolt  of  this  country.' 
To  his  lordship  therefore  as  being  answerable  for  the  meas- 
ure the  appeal  will  more  properly  be  made."^  General 
Greene  wrote  to  Lord  Cornwallis,  but  it  does  not  appear  that 
his  lordship  ever  answered  the  letter  addressed  to  him 
upon  the  subject.^  The  sentiment  of  the  army  was  impa- 
tient for  immediate  retaliation.  Without  a  knowledge  of  the 
resolution  of  General  Greene  or  of  his  correspondence,  and 
surprised  at  his  supposed  hesitation,  the  officers  of  his  army, 
on  the  20th  of  August,  addressed  him  a  memorial,  which 
was  in  the  handwriting  of  Colonel  Williams,  urging 
retaliation,  professing  their  consciousness  of  the  danger  to 
which  it  exposed  them,  and  their  readiness  to  encounter  it. 
At  the  head  of  their  list  of  self-devoted  soldiers  was  the 
name  of  Isaac  Huger;  while  William  Washington's  signing 
for  himself  and  his  officers  closed  it.  The  only  known 
name  of  the  army  not  upon  it  was  that  of  Colonel  Lee,  and 
in  justice  to  his  reputation,  says  Johnson,  it  is  proper  to 
remark  that  he  had  for  some  days  previous  been  detached 
to  the  banks  of  the  Congaree.^ 

On  the  26th  General  Greene  issued  the  following  procla- 
mation :  *  — 

"  Whereas  Colonel  Isaac  Hayne  commanding  a  Regiment  of  Militia 
in  the  service  of  the  United  States  was  taken  prisoner  by  a  party  of 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca. ,  vol.  II,  520  ;  Memoirs  of  War  of 
1776  (Lee),  457  ;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  133. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  193. 

8  Ibid,  192-193.  ^  Ibid,  190,  191. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  401 

British  troops,  and  after  a  rigorous  detention  in  the  poorest  prison  at 
Charlestown  was  condemned  and  executed  on  the  4th  of  this  month  in 
the  most  cruel  and  unjustifiable  manner,  in  open  violation  of  the 
cartel  agreed  upon  between  the  two  armies  for  the  release  and  exchange 
of  all  prisoners  of  war  ;  and  it  being  no  less  the  duty  than  the  inclina- 
tion of  the  army  to  resent  every  violence  offered  to  the  good  citizens 
of  America,  to  discountenance  all  those  distinctions  they  have 
endeavored  to  establish  in  making  a  difference  between  the  various 
orders  of  men  found  under  arms  for  the  support  of  the  independence 
of  the  United  States ;  and  further  considering  that  these  violences  are 
committed  with  a  view  of  terrifying  the  good  people,  and  by  that 
means  preventing  them  from  acting  in  conformity  with  their  political 
interest  and  private  inclinations ;  and  that  this  method  of  trying  and 
punishing  in  consequence  of  those  distinctions  is  no  less  opposite  to  the 
spirit  of  the  British,  than  it  is  inclusive  of  an  unwarrantable  infringe- 
ment of  all  the  laws  of  humanity,  and  the  rights  of  the  free  citizens 
of  the  United  States. 

"  From  these  considerations  I  have  thought  proper  to  issue  the 
present  proclamation  expressly  to  declare  that  it  is  my  intention  to 
make  reprisals  for  all  such  inhuman  insults  as  often  as  they  take  place. 
And  whereas  the  enemy  seem  willing  to  expose  the  small  number  of 
the  deceived  and  seduced  inhabitants  who  are  attached  to  their  interest 
if  they  can  but  find  an  opportunity  of  sacrificing  the  great  number 
who  have  stood  forth  in  the  defence  of  our  cause,  I  further  declare 
that  it  is  my  intention  to  take  the  officers  of  the  regular  forces  and  not  the 
inhabitants  who  have  joined  their  army  for  the  objects  of  my  reprisal.  But 
while  I  am  determined  to  resent  eveiy  insult  that  may  be  offered  to 
the  United  States  for  having  maintained  our  independence,  I  cannot 
but  lament  the  necessity  I  am  under  of  having  recourse  to  measures 
so  extremely  wounding  to  the  sentiments  of  humanity,  and  so  contrary 
to  the  principles  on  which  I  wish  to  conduct  the  war.     Given,"  etc. 

All  of  which  was  more  forcibly  and  tersely  expressed  in 
his  letter  to  Marion,  when  he  wrote,  '•^I  dont  iiiteyid  to 
retaliate  on  the  Tory  officers;  hut  on  the  British.^''  But 
General  Greene  did  not  retaliate  at  all.  For  when  the 
first  burst  of  horror  and  indignation  had  subsided  and 
reason  asserted  itself,  the  difficulties  and  complications  of 
the  case  were  realized. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2d 


402  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

The  tragic  circumstances  of  Colonel  Hayne's  case  from 
its  inception  to  his  death,  the  cruel  conditions  under  which 
he  had  given  his  allegiance  to  the  King,  his  honorable 
conduct  in  adhering  to  his  word  under  the  strongest 
inducements  to  have  renounced  its  obligation,  his  decision 
at  last  that  he  was  released  from  its  obligation,  and  the 
gallant  and  brilliant  action  with  which  he  at  once  accom- 
panied that  decision,  the  romantic  incidents  of  his  capture, 
his  quiet,  gentle,  and  dignified  bearing  throughout  his  im- 
prisonment and  trial  and  while  waiting  only  the  pleasure 
of  his  judges  as  to  his  doom,  his  firm  and  heroic  conduct 
in  meeting  the  ignominious  death  to  which  he  was  devoted, 
all  tended  to  excite  the  deepest  interest  and  to  call  for  the 
most  heartfelt  sympathy  for  the  noble  gentleman  who  thus 
died  for  his  country.  Colonel  Hayne  was  indeed  a  martyr 
to  its  cause.  But  his  martyrdom  was  not  in  the  incidental 
circumstances  of  his  death,  however  much  these  appeal  to 
the  nobler  sentiments  of  humanity.  It  was  rather  that, 
though  fully  understanding  the  consequences  of  his  action, 
he  determined  that,  the  British  having  themselves  broken 
the  term  of  his  compact  of  allegiance,  as  he  conceived,  he 
would  repudiate  its  bond  and  take  the  field,  knowing  that 
in  doing  so  he  could  neither  ask  for  nor  expect  any  quarter 
if  taken.  In  doing  this,  like  Pickens,  Hampton,  Postell, 
and  others,  he  ventured  his  life  not  only  against  the  mili- 
tary but  the  civil  power  of  the  enemy;  and  dared  for  his 
country's  cause  to  die  even  upon  the  gibbet. 

The  striking  tragedy  of  Colonel  Hayne's  execution  not 
only  aroused  the  sympathies  of  all  engaged  in  the  cause 
of  liberty  in  this  country,  but  excited  almost  as  much 
indignation  in  England.  The  subject  was  taken  up  in 
the  House  of  Lords  in  the  January  following,  and  made 
there  a  party  question.  In  the  debate  which  then  took 
place  the  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  Lord  Rawdon's  uncle,  in 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  403 

answer  to  the  demand  for  the  production  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  court  before  which  Colonel  Hayne  had  been 
given  such  trial  as  he  had,  explained  that  the  papers  had 
been  thrown  overboard  previous  to  the  packet  being  cap- 
tured that  was  bringing  them  to  England.  His  lordship 
also  made  this  statement  as  to  the  singular  condition  of 
the  military  command  in  South  Carolina.  He  stated  that 
Colonel  Balfour  was  commandant  of  the  town  of  Charles- 
town  at  the  time  in  question,  that  Lord  Rawdon  had  only 
a  partial  command,  and  that  Colonel  Gould,  who  com- 
manded the  three  regiments  just  arrived,  was  the  senior  of 
both.  He  gave  the  House  this  information,  he  said,  not 
as  an  argument  either  in  favor  of  Lord  Rawdon  or  against 
him,  but  merely  to  put  the  House  in  possession  of  the 
facts. 

The  Earl  of  Abingdon  bitterly  denounced  the  execution. 
"It  is,"  said  he,  "  the  case  of  a  cruel  and  barbarous  murder 
of  an  individual.  But  what,"  he  continued,  "is  this 
cruel  and  barbarous  murder  of  an  individual  compared 
with  the  cruel  and  barbarous  murders  which  the  whole  of 
the  American  war  has  occasioned  ?  What  is  this  case  when 
compared  with  that  of  a  noble  peer  of  this  House  solemnly 
protesting  on  the  records  of  the  House  against  the  princi- 
ples of  this  war,  and  yet  going  forth  himself,  and  in  his 
own  person,  to  countel'act  these  principles  and  to  perpetrate 
such  acts  as  these  ?  "  ^ 

The  Duke  of  Manchester,  commenting  upon  the  fact 
that  the  idea  of  the  court  of  inquiry  was  an  afterthought, 
suggested    subsequently    to    the    intention    of    bringing 

1  Referring  to  Earl  Cornwallis,  who,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  opposed  the 
ministerial  action  against  Wilkes  and  in  the  case  of  the  American  col- 
onies. (EncyclopcBdia  Britannica. )  It  is  remarkable  that  both  Lords  Corn- 
wallis and  Rawdon  were  at  first  in  support  of  resistance  on  the  part  of 
the  Americans.  The  language  of  Lord  Rawdon  was  altogether  favorable 
to  the  cause  of  liberty.     (Garden's  Anecdotes,  253.) 


404  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Hayne  to  trial  in  the  usual  form  of  a  court-martial ;  and 
upon  the  further  fact  that  after  all  he  was  not  executed  in 
consequence  of  the  decision  of  the  court  of  inquiry,  but 
in  pursuance  of  a  power  in  which  the  officers  were  vested, 
declared  there  must  have  been  something  very  singular  in 
the  case  of  Hayne,  or  something  precipitate  on  the  part  of 
Lord  Rawdon  and  Colonel  Balfour.  This  was  a  point  he 
wished  to  have  explained.  In  answer  to  this  Lord  Stor- 
mont,  stating  however  his  opinion  with  deference  as  he 
was  no  soldier,  declared  "he  had  always  reckoned  it  a 
maxim  established  upon  the  most  unquestioned  authority 
that  an  officer  having  broken  his  parole  who  should  after- 
wards fall  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy  was  deprived  by  his 
breach  of  faith  of  the  advantage  of  a  formal  trial,  and 
subjected  to  be  executed  mstanter.^^ 

The  Earl  of  Shelburne  (afterwards  Marquis  of  Lans- 
downe)  denied  the  doctrine.  "  The  noble  Lord  in  the 
green  ribbon,"  he  said,  "  had  advanced  a  doctrine  which  to 
him  seemed  totally  new.  He  had  stated  to  their  lordships 
that  an  officer  who  had  broken  his  parole  was  liable  to  be 
put  to  death  instanter  without  the  form  of  a  trial.  This 
idea  he  considered  as  erroneous,  and  one  which  ought  to 
be  reprobated.  He  would  not,  however,  dwell  upon  the 
subject ;  a  fact  which  had  fallen  from  his  lordship  perhaps 
deserved  a  more  serious  consideration.  It  appeared  very 
plainly  from  what  he  had  said  that  in  America  the  power 
of  taking  away  the  lives  of  the  people  was  delegated  by 
his  Majesty  to  the  Commander-in-chief,  and  by  him  dele- 
gated to  the  next  officer  in  authority,  and  by  him  to  his 
inferiors.  Sir  H.  Clinton  was  the  officer  vested  with  the 
supreme  authority  in  America.  He  intrusted  the  power 
reposed  in  him  to  Cornwallis,  and  he  in  his  turn  had  trans- 
ferred it  to  Lord  Rawdon  and  Colonel  Balfour.  His  lord- 
ship begged  to  know  by  what  authority  so  important  a 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  405 

jurisdiction  over  the  lives  of  mankind  was  thus  wantonly 
delegated  from  one  person  to  another  ?  '* 

The  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord  Thurlovv,  is  said  to  have  had 
a  great  contempt  for  his  audiences  in  the  House  of  Peers, 
and  to  have  reckoned  often  with  daring  confidence  upon 
their  ignorance.  An  instance  of  this  is  given  in  the 
Memoirs  of  Bishop  Watson^  in  which,  with  his  usual  un- 
scrupulous insolence,  Thurlow  bore  down  the  bishop, 
insisting  that  a  quotation  by  the  latter  from  Grotius  was 
erroneous,  when  it  turned  out,  in  fact,  that  the  bishop  was 
perfectly  correct  and  he  was  wrong.^  But  that  was  not 
the  first  time  his  lordship  had  misquoted  the  same  author. 
It  was  in  this  debate  that  he  did  so ;  but  here  his  false 
quotation  was  not  allowed  to  pass  without  exposure.  In 
answer  to  the  Earl  of  Shelburne  he  said,  "  He  would 
now  offer  a  word  or  two  as  to  the  justice  of  his  (Hayne's) 
execution.  He  was  no  soldier,  but  he  fancied  he  was 
not  totally  unequal  to  the  task  of  comprehending  an 
author  whose  opinions  were  universally  assented  to  by 
all  civilized  nations ;  and,  of  course,  whose  writings  were 
deemed  the  true  standard  by  which  persons  in  military 
situations  were  to  conduct  themselves ;  he  meant  that 
learned  man,  Grotius,  who  had  written  on  the  law  of  na- 
tions, necessarily  including  the  law  of  war  and  open 
hostility  which  are  particularly  laid  down  in  that  cele- 
ibrated  work."  Here  his  lordship  quoted  several  pas- 
sages from  that  author,  and  from  Cocceius  and  Vattel, 
the  two  last  of  whom  wrote  much  later  than  Grotius,  in 
which  he  said  it  was  clearly  laid  down  that  all  prisoners, 
as  among  common  enemies,  when  taken  in  battle  are  at 
the  mercy  of  their  captors,  but  that  a  more  civilized  and 
refined  way  of   thinking  had  prevailed  by  the  accepting 

^  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors  (Campbell)  vol.  VII,  162  ;  Anecdotes  of 
the  Life  of  Bichard  Watson,  vol.  II,  359. 


406  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

surrender  at  discretion,  or  upon  capitulation  which  entitled 
the  prisoner  to  his  life  and  to  future  release  upon  condi- 
tions ;  hut  then  it  was  allowed  universalis/^  and  asserted  with- 
out reserve^  that  a  prisoner  breaking  his  parole  forfeited  all 
title  to  mercy ^  and  it  was  only  necessary  to  prove  his  personal 
identity  to  subject  him  to  death  instanter. 

The  absurdity  of  quoting  Grotius,  who  wrote  in  1623, 
more  than  a  century  and  a  half  before,  on  this  novel  and 
anomalous  subject,  was  at  once  exposed  by  the  Earl  of 
EiBngham.  This  nobleman,  after  observing  that  the  sum 
of  the  Lord  Chancellor's  information  had  been  that  Amer- 
ica was  under  martial  law;  that  the  same  martial  law 
vested  prodigious  authority  in  the  commanding  officers, 
and  that  the  usual  administration  of  the  martial  law  had 
been  of  the  most  easy  and  liberal  kind,  having  had  no  other 
rule  than  the  appointing  a  court  of  inquiry,  consisting  of 
three  officers  of  the  provincial  Loyalists  who  looked  over 
the  prisoners  at  any  time  brought  before  it  by  the  King's 
forces,  and  whoever  was  by  this  new  contrived  court  de- 
clared to  have  broken  parole,  was  immediately  ordered  for 
execution ;  thus  proceeded :  — 

"  If  this  improvement  upon  the  jus  gentium  had  rested  solely  on  the 
authority  of  the  noble  Lord,  I  should  have  left  it  to  refute  itself  as  I 
think  it  would  have  done  by  its  manifest  repugnancy  to  the  common 
rights  of  mankind,  and  the  consideration  of  the  noble  Lord  being 
under  no  particular  professional  obligation  to  render  himself  master 
of  the  subject.  But  in  the  present  case  two  of  his  Majesty's  ministers 
have  stepped  forth  and  laid  down  some  doctrines  so  contrary  to  what 
I  take  for  truth,  that  I  feel  myself  under  an  obligation  to  make  some 
observations  upon  them.  The  noble  Lord  in  the  green  ribbon  has 
asserted  that  it  is  a  known  rule  that  a  prisoner  of  war  having  broken 
his  parole  has  thereby  forfeited  his  life,  and  is  to  be  executed  like  a 
spy  without  any  other  form  than  what  may  suffice  to  identify  his  per- 
son. This  I  will  venture  to  deny  ever  to  have  been  laid  down  in  any 
book  of  authority  or  ever  practised  in  civilized  countries.  The  learned 
Lord  indeed  in  confirming  this  doctrine  has  quoted  Grotius.    I  wish 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  407 

his  lordship  had  been  more  explicit,  for  it  is  with  great  diffidence  I 
can  oppose  my  knowledge  of  Grotius  to  his  lordship,  and  yet  I  am 
clear  that  Grotius  never  wrote  one  word  about  prisoners  upon  parole ; 
he  never  heard  of  such  a  thing.  It  is  a  very  modern  civility  intro- 
duced into  some  countries.  And  it  more  resembles  what  we  call 
bail,  than  anything  else ;  and  whoever  runs  away  from  it  may  be 
closely  confined,  but  not  put  to  death  by  any  rule  I  ever  heard,"  etc.  ^ 

The  motion  for  the  production  of  the  papers  was  defeated 
by  a  vote  of  nearly  three  to  one.  But  the  debate  serves 
to  show  the  views  taken  of  the  case  in  England.  Lord 
Rawdon  was  surprised  and  mortified  to  find,  on  his  return 
to  Europe,  how  generally  condemned  as  unpolitic  and  un- 
just was  the  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne.  It  is  evident 
that  he  smarted  under  reflections  which  his  connection 
with  the  case  had  elicited.  Nor  is  it  creditable  to  him  that, 
in  order  to  avoid  his  share  of  the  responsibility,  he,  both  in 
private  and  public,  endeavored  to  put  the  blame  upon 
Balfour.  When  captured  at  sea  by  the  French  fleet  and 
sent  to  France,  he  met  at  Paris  a  Carolina  family  with 
whom  he  had  been  previously  intimate  in  Italy,  and  hear- 
ing in  every  society  the  severity  towards  Colonel  Hayne 
reprobated,  he  insinuated,  "  that  contrary  to  his  opinion  it 
had  been  urged  and  insisted  upon  by  the  commandant  of 
Charlestown."2  His  uncle,  the  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  it 
will  be  observed,  while  declaring  that  he  gave  the  informa- 
tion not  as  an  argument  either  in  favor  of  Lord  Rawdon 
nor  against  him,  but  merely  to  put  the  House  of  Lords  in 
possession  of  the  facts,  states  that  he  was  at  the  time 
ranked  in  command,  not  only  by  Colonel  Balfour,  but  by 
Colonel  Gould  as  well,  clearly  intimating  thereby  that  his 
nephew  was  not  responsible  in  the  matter.  How  this  sug- 
gestion aids  Lord  Rawdon's  reputation  will  be  judged  by 

1  Parliamentary  History,  1781  to  1782,  vol.  XXII,  963-984  ;  Annual 
Begister,  1782,  vol.  XXV. 

2  Garden's  Aiiecdotes,  254, 


408  HISTOllY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

those  perusing  the  foregoing  pages.  An  officer  receiving 
a  paper  drawn  by  one  of  his  staff  at  his  own  suggestion, 
addressed  to  him  as  "  Commander-in-chief,"  can  scarcely 
be  heard  to  deny  or  qualify  his  action  upon  it  as  such. 
So  sensitive  was  his  lordship  upon  the  subject,  that  he 
made  a  personal  affair  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  speech 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  in  introducing  an  inquiry  in  regard 
to  it,  and  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  that  nobleman  an 
apology  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Lords,  in  words  dic- 
tated by  himself.^     And  yet   afterward  in  a   letter  from 

'^Parliamentary  History,  supra  Garden's  Anecdotes,  253:  "About this 
time  his  lordship's  conduct  in  the  affair  already  alluded  to  the  execution 
of  Colonel  llayne,  was  mentioned  in  such  a  maimer  as  to  give  great  um- 
brage—  sufficient  indeed  to  induce  Lord  llawdon  to  call  upon  his  Grace 
for  an  explanation.  After  several  messages  through  the  interference  of 
friends  the  Duke  of  Richmond  agreed  to  read  such  a  recantation  in  the 
House  of  Lords  as  Lord  llawdon  should  think  proper  to  dictate. 

"  It  has  been  a  matter  of  doubt  among  persons  of  cool  and  deliberate 
reflection,  whether  the  peremptory  step  which  his  lordship  took  on  this 
occasion  was  more  advantageous  to  his  cliaracter  than  a  thorough  inves- 
tigation of  the  business  might  have  proved  in  Parliament."  —  British  Mili- 
tary Library,  London  (1799),  vol.  I,  86.  The  Duke  of  Richmond's  con- 
duct upon  this  occasion,  it  was  said,  laid  him  under  very  general  suspicion 
of  want  of  courage  in  not  standing  to  his  charge.  (  Wraxall's  Memoirs,  vol. 
II,  199, 500.)  "The  Duke  of  Richmond,"  says  Garden,  "called  the  attention 
of  the  House  of  Lords  to  the  inhuman  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne,  the 
particulars  of  which  had  been  forwarded  to  him  by  Mr.  John  Bowman. 
Lord  Rawdon,  arriving  in  Europe,  denied  the  justice  of  the  charge,  threat- 
ening to  call  on  the  Duke  for  personal  satisfaction  unless  an  immediate 
apology  should  remove  the  stain  from  his  injured  honor.  The  Duke  knew 
full  well  the  justice  of  the  charge.  He  was  personally  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Bowman,  had  often  sought  information  from  him  relative  to  Ameri- 
can affairs,  and  had  never  had  any  cause  to  question  his  veracity  ;  but  his 
courage  at  the  moment  must  have  been  at  a  low  ebb.  He  hesitated,  in- 
deed, on  the  inconsistency  of  his  conduct,  but  ultimately  averred  'that 
he  had  received  his  information  from  one  Bowman  wiiom  he  knew  noth- 
ing about.  He  was,  he  confessed,  rash  in  his  charge,  and  solicited  par- 
don for  having  made  it.'  "  —  Garden's  Anecdotes,  253.  Mr.  John  Bowman 
was  a  highly  educated  and  accomplished  gentleman  who  had  recently  settled 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  409 

which  frequent  quotations  have  hitherto  been  made,  he 
again  endeavors  to  shield  himself  from  the  responsibility, 
upon  the  plea  of  his  inferiority  in  rank  to  Colonel  Balfour. 

But  after  all,  notwithstanding  the  intense  feeling  which 
this  unfortunate  affair  excited  at  home,  and  the  indigna- 
tion with  which  it  was  regarded  by  all  the  friends  of 
America  in  Europe,  notwithstanding  the  bitter  denuncia- 
tions with  which  it  has  been  treated  by  the  historians  of 
America,  if  a  state  of  war  warrants  the  infliction  of  death 
whenever  necessary  to  secure  its  ultimate  object,  it  can 
scarcely  be  questioned  that  it  was  a  military  necessity  in 
this  instance.  It  was  not  only  the  case  of  Colonel  Hayne, 
however  pitiful  that  may  appear.  It  was  the  vital  ques- 
tion, to  the  British  rule,  as  to  the  condition  of  those  in  the 
country  of  which  the  Whigs  were  now  rapidly  regaining 
the  possession,  who  had  given  their  paroles  or  taken  pro- 
tection. Were  these  persons  released  from  the  binding 
efficacy  of  the  pledges  given  by  them  because  the  Ameri- 
cans had  recovered  possession,  though  temporary  it  might 
be,  of  the  territory  in  which  they  lived  ?  If  so,  every 
raiding  force  was  a  recruiting  party  to  the  rebels.  It  was 
the  practical  reversal  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton's  policy  of  con- 
quering America  by  the  Americans.  It  was  conquering 
the  British  by  the  means  of  these  reclaimed  subjects.  An 
example  was  necessary.  Postell  had  been  in  close  con- 
finement since  his  capture  in  January  ;  but  his  confinement 
had  not  arrested  the  conduct  of  others  when  opportunity 
presented  of  resuming  their  arms. 

It  must  be  observed  also  that  Colonel  Hayne's  execu- 
tion was  not  in  violation  of  the  cartel  agreed  upon  for  the 
exchange  of  prisoners,  as   asserted   in   General   Greene's 

in  South  Carolina.  He  married  a  daughter  of  Thomas  Lynch,  member  of 
the  Continental  Congress,  and  sister  of  Thomas  Lynch,  Jr.,  the  signer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


410  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

proclamation.  The  cartel  agreed  to  in  May  was  most 
general  in  its  terms,  and,  without  specific  provision  to  that 
effect,  must  have  been  construed  as  relating  only  to  such 
prisoners  as  had  already  been  captured  on  both  sides. 
And  so  it  was  construed  and  acted  upon  in  that  negotiated 
by  the  commissaries  on  the  22d  of  June,  which  was  ex- 
pressly limited  to  those  taken  from  the  commencement  of 
the  war  to  the  15th  of  June.^  Colonel  Hayne  was  not  cap- 
tured until  the  8th  of  July,  three  weeks  after,  and  did 
not  therefore  come  within  its  terms.  Moreover,  the  Brit- 
ish had  expressly  refused  to  recognize  prisoners  of  this 
description  as  coming  within  the  terms  of  the  cartel. 
Postell's  case,  it  is  true,  had  been  referred  for  some  pur- 
pose, not  disclosed,  to  General  Greene,  but  he  was  still 
held  as  a  close  prisoner.  Balfour,  in  a  letter  to  General 
Greene,  dated  August  18,  points  this  out  in  regard  to 
Postell's  case,  and  justly  expresses  his  surprise  that  a 
claim  could  be  made  for  the  exchange  of  Mr.  Cooper,  who 
had  been  taken  on  the  17th  of  July.^ 

Strange  to  say,  in  all  the  bitter  controversy  in  regard  to 
the  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne,  the  British  authorities 
failed  to  point  out  that  the  Americans  themselves  estab- 
lished the  precedent,  justifying  the  execution  of  those 
taken  under  similar  circumstances.  Not  to  dwell  upon 
the  general  massacre  of  the  prisoners  after  the  battle  of 
King's  Mountain,  one  instance  would  at  least  have  justi- 
fied their  conduct  in  Colonel  Hayne's  case.  One  Green, 
taken  there,  was  tried  before  a  drum-head  court-martial,  — 
if  the  court  could  be  dignified  even  by  that  name,  —  upon 
the  charge  that  he  had  violated  the  oath  he  had  taken  as 
an  officer  to  support  the  government  of  North  Carolina 
and  of  the  United  States  by  accepting  a  British  commis- 
sion and  fighting  on  that  side  at  King's  Mountain.     Some 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  123.  ^  n^i^,^  i28. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  411 

of  the  British  officers  remonstrated  at  the  course  taken, 
when  Colonel  Cleveland,  then  in  command,  cut  them 
short,  saying,  *'  Gentlemen,  you  are  British  officers  and 
shall  be  treated  accordingly  —  therefore,  give  your  paroles 
and  march  off  immediately ;  the  other  person  is  a  subject  of 
the  StateJ^  The  prisoner  was  accordingly  condemned  to 
be  executed  the  next  morning.  ^  Fortunately,  he  escaped 
during  the  night,  which  probably  accounts  for  the  over- 
looking of  the  case ;  but  it  none  the  less  closes  the  mouths 
of  Americans  who  would  represent  the  conduct  of  the 
British  officers  in  Hayne's  case  as  without  precedent  in  its 
barbarity. 

The  question  as  to  the  legality  of  the  proceedings  under 
which  Colonel  Hayne  was  executed  was  a  proper  one  for 
discussion  in  the  British  Parliament,  for  it  was  one  in- 
volving the  due  administration  of  the  law  of  the  king- 
dom, whether  at  home  or  in  a  foreign  country  covered 
for  the  time  by  its  flag.  It  was,  so  to  speak,  a  domes- 
tic question.  But  it  was  not  one  in  which  Americans 
claiming  to  be  citizens  of  another  government  could  join 
in  discussing.  The  only  question  which  they  had  to  con- 
sider was  as  to  the  right  of  the  British  authorities,  be  they 
who  they  might,  to  inflict  death  upon  one  claiming  to  be 
an  American  citizen.  It  was  in  the  execution  itself,  not 
in  the  manner  in  which  they  proceeded  to  the  execution, 
that  the  country  at  large  was  interested.  It  was  not  con- 
sistent to  repudiate  allegiance  to  the  British  government 
and  then  complain  that  the  prisoner  was  not  tried  accord- 
ing to  British  laws.  Meddling  with  the  discussion  upon 
this  point  deprives  Colonel  Hayne  of  the  honor  of  martyr- 
dom, to  which  he  was  justly  entitled.  For  if  his  execution 
was  a  mere  accident  of  his  falling  into  the  hands  of  cruel 

1  Gordon's  Am.  Bevolution,  vol.  Ill,  466-467  ;  King''s  Mountain  and 
its  Heroes^  853. 


412  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

men,  who,  disregarding  their  own  laws,  put  him  to  an 
unexpected  death,  however  much  we  may  pity  the  individ- 
ual, it  is,  in  the  end,  only  our  pity  which  is  called  for.  But 
if  Colonel  Hayne,  fully  aware  of  his  doom,  if  in  the  chances 
of  battle  he  should  be  taken,  nevertheless  regarding  him- 
self honorably  released  from  the  allegiance  he  had  sub- 
scribed, determined  to  face  even  an  ignominious  death  for 
the  cause  of  his  country,  then  was  he  a  martyr  indeed,  and 
is  entitled,  not  only  to  our  pity,  but  to  our  admiration  for 
his  heroism.  Such,  indeed,  we  submit  the  case  of  Colonel 
Hayne  to  have  been. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

1781 

General  Greene  had  recrossed  the  Congaree  on  the 
night  of  the  13th  of  July  and  taken  post  on  the  High  Hills 
of  Santee,  where  with  his  continentals  he  went  into  a  camp 
of  rest  or  of  "  Repose,"  as  it  was  called,  while  Sumter  with 
Marion  and  Lee  made  their  incursion  into  the  Low-Country.^ 
Greene  himself,  however,  had  not  been  idle  during  the 
repose  of  his  troops.  He  had  been  busy  appealing  to 
Washington,  appealing  to  Congress,  appealing  to  North 
Carolina,  for  assistance  and  reenforcements.  Such  of  the 
Pennsylvania  line  as  had  reassembled  after  its  mutiny  in 
New  Jersey  on  the  night  of  the  1st  of  January,  and  had 
been  recruited,  amounting  to  about  one  thousand  men,  had 
been  ordered  by  Washington  about  the  middle  of  February 

1  The  last  reference  to  General  Greene's  connection  with  the  firm  of 
Barnabas  Deane  &  Co.  is  found  in  a  letter  to  Colonel  Wadsworth  written 
from  the  "High  Hills  of  Santee"  on  July  18,  1781,  in  which  he  asks: 
"How  goes  on  our  commerce?  Please  to  give  me  an  account  by  the 
Table  [i.e.  in  cipher]  as  letters  are  frequently  intercepted."  In  this  letter 
he  gives  a  humorous  sketch  of  the  Southern  campaign  —  the  only  touch 
of  humor  found  in  his  letters  :  "Our  array  has  been  frequently  beaten,  and 
like  the  stock-fish  grows  the  better  for  it,  .  .  .  I  had  a  letter  some  time  since 
from  Mr.  John  TurnbuU  (M'Fingal)  wherein  he  asserts  that  with  all  my 
talents  for  war  I  am  deficient  in  the  great  art  of  making  a  timely  retreat. 
I  hope  I  have  convinced  the  world  to  the  contrary  for  there  are  few  gen- 
erals that  have  run  oftener  or  more  lustily  than  I  have  done  ;  but  I  have 
taken  care  not  to  run  too  far,  and  commonly  have  run  as  fast  forward  as 
backward  to  convince  our  enemy  that  we  were  like  a  crab  that  could  run 
either  way."  —  Magazine  of  American  History  (Lamb),  vol.  XII,  27. 

413 


414  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  join  the  Southern  army,  and  a  detachment  under  the 
Marquis  de  Lafayette  had  also  been  directed  to  proceed 
thither.  But  these  had  been  detained  in  Virginia  upon  the 
apprehension  of  the  invasion  of  that  State,  and  had  of  course 
been  prevented  from  coming  farther  when  Cornwallis  had 
moved  again  towards  Virginia,  advancing  from  Wilming- 
ton, to  which  he  had  retreated  after  the  battle  of  Guilford 
Court-house.  But  Lafayette,  to  whom  the  defence  of 
Virginia  had  now  been  committed,  having  reason  to  believe 
that  Cornwallis  was  about  to  take  shipping  to  New  York, 
had  authorized  General  Wayne  in  command  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania line  to  resume  his  original  design  of  marching  to 
the  relief  of  Greene.  The  latter  general  was  therefore 
anxiously  awaiting  the  arrival  of  this  reenforcement,  when 
he  learned  that  Wayne's  march  had  been  again  counter- 
manded, as  the  British  transports  had  been  recalled,  and 
that  the  fleet  had  proceeded  up  to  Yorktown.  This  was  his 
first  disappointment  at  this  time.  The  next  was  in  the 
loss  of  a  body  of  150  troops  raised  by  Colonel  Jackson  in 
Georgia,  the  whole  of  whom  were  taken  with  smallpox 
nearly  at  the  same  time,  fully  50  dying,  and  the  rest  being 
too  much  reduced  by  the  consequences  of  the  disease  to 
be  in  a  state  for  service.  Then,  while  he  was  retreating 
from  Ninety  Six,  he  had  been  assured  that  he  might  rely 
for  support  on  the  militia  of  Mecklenburg  and  Rowan 
counties  of  North  Carolina,  and  3500  men  had  been  prom- 
ised him ;  but  when  he  had  halted  in  his  retreat  and  turned 
again  towards  the  enemy,  the  martial  ardor  of  these  coun- 
ties had  in  a  measure  at  least  subsided  upon  the  removal 
of  the  immediate  danger  of  their  invasion,  and  less  than 
500  now  joined  him.  So,  too,  upon  his  appeal  to  Shelby 
and  Sevier,  the  heroes  of  the  year  before,  they  had  promised 
him  a  reenforcement  of  700  of  their  select  followers ;  and 
with  these  they  had  actually  advanced  far  on  their  way  to 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  415 

join  him  when  intelligence  reached  them  that  he  (Greene) 
had  resumed  the  offensive,  and  had  advanced  towards 
Orangeburgh,  and  rumor  added  that  he  had  driven  the 
enemy  into  Charlestown,  upon  which  Shelby  and  Sevier 
wrote  that,  as  they  supposed  his  recent  successes  had  ren- 
dered their  services  unnecessary,  they  had  returned  and 
disbanded.! 

Greene  had  also  conjured  other  causes  of  complaint 
against  Sumter.  It  is  disagreeable  to  the  student  of  history, 
alike  whether  he  be  author  or  reader,  to  have  his  atten- 
tion arrested  and  diverted  from  the  contemplation  of  great 
public  events  by  the  small  interfering  personal  jars  of  the 
great  men  who  are  the  actors  in  such  affairs.  But  these 
personal  and  otherwise  insignificant  quarrels  cannot,  never- 
theless, be  disregarded,  for  they  often,  as  in  this  case,  enter 
largely  into  and  affect  public  affairs  in  a  manner  alto- 
gether disproportioned  to  their  own  relative  importance. 
And  so  it  is  that  we  must  now  turn  again  aside  to  learn 
somewhat  of  the  merits  of  the  further  differences  between 
the  leaders  in  the  war  in  South  Carolina.  Greene  found, 
he  claimed,  new  causes  of  complaint  against  Sumter,  and 
Lee  stood  by  to  aggravate  their  differences. 

When  Sumter  had  returned  from  his  expedition  to  the 
Low-Country  he  had  been  directed  to  ascend  the  Congaree 
and  to  take  post  at  Friday's  Ferry,  leaving  Marion  to  take 
charge  of  the  country  on  the  Santee.  Having  been  called 
to  the  upper  part  of  the  State  in  looking  for  supplies  for 
his  brigade,  the  command  of  his  men  in  the  field  was  com- 
mitted to  Colonel  Wade  Hampton.  While  thus  away 
from  the  immediate  command  of  his  corps,  Sumter's  con- 
tinued sufferings  from  his  wound  and  general  state  of  his 
health  compelled  him  to  rest  for  a  while  at  a  plantation 
near  Charlotte.  Colonel  Henderson,  who,  it  will  be  recol- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  208. 


416  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

lected,  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  during  the  siege 
of  Charlestown  the  year  before,  had,  it  happened,  just  been 
released  from  Haddrell's  Point  on  the  general  exchange 
of  prisoners,  and  reporting  for  duty,  ranking  Hampton,  he 
was  put  in  command  of  Sumter's  brigade  over  that  officer. 
General  Greene,  it  is  said,  calculated  at  this  time  on  a  per- 
manent disciplined  force  under  Sumter  of  four  hundred  or 
five  hundred.  Upon  what  basis  or  grounds  this  calcula- 
tion was  made  is  not  stated.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
Colonel  Henderson  was  disappointed  when,  upon  assuming 
command,  he  found,  as  he  states,  but  two  hundred  men  fit 
for  duty  —  how  many  present  he  considered  unfit,  or  for 
what  cause,  is  not  stated.  How  Sumter,  any  more  than 
Marion,  neither  of  whom  had  any  government  behind  them 
to  bring  out  their  men  or  to  keep  them  in  the  field  when 
there,  was  to  be  held  personally  responsible  for  having  or 
not  having  any  given  number  of  either  volunteers  or  State 
troops,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive.  But  just  as  Greene  had 
blamed  Sumter  on  his  return  from  North  Carolina  because 
he  had  not  found  the  force  which,  upon  his  own  misconcep- 
tion of  Sumter's  letter,  he  had  expected,  so  now  he  turned 
his  wrath  on  that  unfortunate  officer ;  and  as  before  he  had 
indulged  his  resentments,  not  directly  to  General  Sumter 
himself,  but  in  his  communication  to  Colonel  Lee  and  to 
others,  so  too,  now,  instead  of  addressing  Sumter  upon  the 
subject,  General  Greene's  feelings  at  the  time,  as  his 
biographer  expresses  it,  were  vented  to  Colonel  Hender- 
son. Sumter's  offence  this  time,  according  to  Greene's 
biographers,^  was  that  when  Henderson  assumed  command 
he  received  a  communication  from  Sumter  expressing  his 
wish  "  that  the  troops  should  have  a  respite  from  service 
until  the  first  of  October,  and  as  many  of  them  furloughed 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  210,  212  ;  Great  Commanders  Series, 
General  Greene  (Greene),  215. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  417 

home  from  time  to  time  as  the  service  would  admit  of,  and 
that  Colonel  Henderson  should  apply  to  General  Greene 
for  that  purpose,  at  the  same  time  ordering  that  the  horses 
of  the  brigade  should  be  sent  into  the  river  swamps  to 
pasture  and  committed  to  the  care  of  detachments  of 
militia."  Henderson,  who  had  been  cooped  up  at  Had- 
drell's  Point  for  fourteen  months,  and  was  burning  for  an 
opportunity  of  distinguishing  himself  at  the  head  of  a 
band  which  had  become  famous  while  he  was  a  prisoner, 
was  naturally  disappointed  at  the  suggestion,  and  warmly 
and  impatiently  protested  against  it.  "  Have  I  come  here," 
he  wrote,  "  only  to  furlough  a  parcel  of  troops  ?  and  that 
too  when  the  enemy  is  at  our  door,  and  their  horses  to  be 
guarded  by  militia?  No  readier  way  to  dismount  [dis- 
band ?  ]  them  could  be  devised."  ^ 

Whether  wise  or  unwise  in  itself,  it  will  be  observed 
that  Sumter's  communication  was  but  a  suggestion  to 
General  Greene  himself,  for  in  it  Sumter  requests  Hender- 
son to  apply  to  the  general  for  permission.  The  sending 
of  the  horses  into  the  swamps  for  pasture  was  dependent 
upon  Greene  allowing  the  men  to  be  f urloughed.  This  he 
could  at  once  refuse  and  end  the  matter ;  or  if  he  had  any 
reflections  to  make,  Sumter  was  himself  within  reach  and, 
though  sick  and  suffering,  was  at  that  time  in  constant 
communication  with  himself  and  Governor  Rutledge.  But 
instead  of  addressing  Sumter,  if  he  must  write  at  all  upon 
the  subject,  General  Greene  again,  against  all  military  pro- 
priety—  to  say  nothing  more  —  wrote  to  Sumter's  subor- 
dinate, Henderson,  on  the  16th  of  August,  criticising  his 
commander  in  the  severest  terms. 

"  I  received,"  he  wrote,  "  your  favor  of  the  14th  inclosing  General 
Sumter's  order  for  the  disbanding  of  his  brigade  —  for  I  can  consider 
it  in  no  other  light.     What  can  be  his  reason  for  such  an  extraordi- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  211. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2e 


418  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

nary  measure  I  cannot  imagine ;  nor  can  I  conceive  how  he  could 
think  of  taking  such  a  step  without  consulting  me  or  obtaining  my 
consent  for  the  purpose.  If  he  supposes  himself  at  liberty  to  employ 
those  troops  independently  of  the  Continental  army,  it  is  time  he 
should  be  convinced  to  the  contrary.  It  is  true  I  have  granted  every 
indulgence  to  those  troops  and  given  the  General  a  latitude  to  act 
much  at  discretion.  But  this  I  did  from  a  persuasion  that  his  own 
ambition  would  prompt  him  to  attempt  everything  that  his  force 
could  effect ;  and  it  was  never  meant  or  intended  to  have  any  opera- 
tions when  the  General  was  not  in  the  field.  By  a  measure  of  this 
kind  the  country  will  be  left  open  for  the  enemy  to  ravage,  and  the 
Continental  army  exposed  to  any  attack  which  the  enemy  may 
think  proper  to  attempt  while  those  troops  are  at  home  on  furlough. 
.  .  .  Upon  the  whole,  sir,  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  General 
Sumter  gave  himself  sufficient  time  to  trace  out  the  consequence  he 
recommends,  or  rather  orders,  to  take  place.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  can 
by  no  means  give  my  consent  to  it,  and  therefore  you  will  not  fur- 
lough a  man  or  officer  unless  for  some  particular  reason;  and  you 
will  give  positive  orders  to  have  the  whole  collected  as  fast  as  pos- 
sible and  every  man  at  home  called  to  the  field  as  soon  as  may  be 
who  are  not  employed  as  artificers, "  etc.^ 

It  will  be  observed  that  General  Greene  speaks  of  Sum- 
ter's having  disbanded  his  brigade,  adding,  however,  "  for 
I  can  consider  it  in  no  other  light,"  and  upon  this  histo- 
rians have  generally  assumed  that  Sumter  had  actually 
done  so.     Let  us  see  if  this  charge  was  just. 

On  the  27th  of  July  Major  Burnet,  aide-de-camp  to  Gen- 
eral Greene,  wrote  to  Sumter,  by  the  general's  direction, 
informing  him  that  he  had  received  intelligence  which 
rendered  it  necessary  for  Sumter  to  take  position  at  the 
Congaree,  and  to  remove  all  grain  from  the  south  side  of 
the  river ;  that  it  was  probable  the  enemy  might  make  an 
attempt  to  reestablish  a  post  at  that  place  before  he  could 
remove  the  corn.^     Greene  himself,  it  seems,  wrote  also  to 

1  Sumter  MSS.,  supra. 

2  Sumter's  letters,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charles- 
ton, 1899,  Appendix,  122. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  419 

the  same  effect,  for  on  the  30th  of  July  Sumter  replies, 
acknowledging  the  receipt  of  the  two  letters,  and  reporting 
his  movements  in  obedience  to  them,  and  adding,  "  Agree- 
able to  your  directions,  have  ordered  the  militia  of  my 
brigade  to  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  march  at  the 
shortest  notice."  ^  Continuing,  Sumter  writes  in  further 
reply  to  Greene's  letter :  — 

"  With  respect  to  drafting  or  engaging  the  militia  to  serve  three 
or  four  months,  notwithstanding  the  number  required  might  be  small, 
yet  I  doubt  the  measure  would  not  take,  as  the  law  requires  them  to 
serve  but  two  months,  and  short  as  the  time  is  they  seldom  stay  one- 
half  of  the  time.  My  brigade  turned  out  tolerable  well  upon  the  late 
occasion,  but  discovering  the  indolence  of  their  neighbours  and  that 
the  people  of  the  adjacent  states  made  them  complain  of  injustice  in 
point  of  service,  and  therefore  uneasy  to  go  home  —  in  which  by  one 
means  or  another  they  are  all  gratified." 

General  Greene  received  this  letter,  and  replies  to  it  by 
letter  of  the  1st  of  August,  in  which,  after  discussing  the 
enemy's  movements,  he  writes :  ^  — 

"  Governor  Rutledge  is  arrived  and  I  hope  will  take  measures  for 
regulating  the  militia  upon  a  proper  footing  &  also  for  raising  Con- 
tinental and  State  troops  for  a  longer  time  than  those  engaged  are 
serving  with  you.  Something  is  necessary  to  be  done  to  put  a  stop 
to  the  horrid  practice  of  plundering." 

Immediately  after  this  correspondence,  Sumter's  con- 
tinued sufferings  from  his  wound  required  his  temporary 
retirement,  whereupon  he  wrote  the  letter  to  Henderson 
which  Greene  so  censured.  There  was  surely  nothing  in 
his  correspondence  with  Greene  himself  that  could  be  con- 
strued into  disbanding  his  command,  nor  was  it  so  con- 
strued. He  writes  to  Greene  complaining  that  his  militia 
would  not  stay  over  two  months,  which   was   the   term 

1  Sumter's  letters,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charles- 
ton, 1889,  Appendix,  61,  62. 

2  Ibid.,  122,  123. 


420  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

required  by  the  Acts  of  Assembly.  And,  strange  to  say, 
Judge  Johnson,  who  so  willingly  joins  Greene  in  his  con- 
demnation of  Sumter  for  his  supposed  dismission  of  his 
men,  thus  tells  of  the  retirement  of  Marion  and  his  brigade 
at  the  same  time.  He  says  that  immediately  after  the 
battle  of  Quinby  Bridge,  Marion  retired  to  undergo  one 
of  those  transformations  to  which  he  in  common  with  other 
State  commanders  was  constantly  subjected,  and  he  explains 
that  by  the  State  law  the  time  of  the  militia  service  was 
but  two  months,  and  that,  notwithstanding  the  prostration 
of  civil  government,  that  was  still  the  law  under  which  the 
men  were  called  into  the  service,  and  that  as  often  as  the 
two  months  expired  Marion  had  to  retire  until  he  could 
get  a  new  set  of  men.^  But  if  Marion  had  to  retire  for 
this  purpose,  should  Sumter  be  blamed  for  having  to  do 
likewise  ? 

At  the  battle  of  Quinby  Bridge,  it  may  be  remembered, 
Sumter's  and  Marion's  men  together  did  not  amount  to  more 
than  450.  In  his  report  Sumter  states  "that  General 
Marion  had  but  a  few  men  with  him,  the  remains  (?) 
breaking  off,  which  has  furnished  a  pretext  with  my 
brigade  that  they  ought  to  go  home  also  —  some  has  taken 
this  liberty  —  I  had  a  desire  of  employing  for  a  few  days 
upon  another  tour  before  they  was  discharged."  ^  Sumter 
had  in  the  battle  of  Quinby  Bridge  six  regiments  and 
Marion  four.  Taylor's  regiment,  so-called,  numbered  but 
45 ;  taking  this  as  somewhat  of  a  test,  we  may  not  be  far  out 
of  the  way  in  assuming  that  Sumter  had  in  that  engage- 
ment 300,  and  Marion  150.  But  while  he  reported  that 
many  of  Marion's  men  went  off,  and  some  of  his  also,  yet  he 
was  able  to  report,  on  the  SOtli  of  July,  that  in  complying 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  177. 

2  Sumter's  letters,  Nightingale  Collection,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charles- 
ton, Appendix,  49. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  421 

with  General  Greene's  order  to  take  position  at  Friday's 
Ferry,  that  all  his  best  mounted  state  troops,  except  those 
on  detached  duty,  had  passed  the  river  to  the  number  of  230. 
This  included  probably  Henry  Hampton's  regiment,  which 
had  not  been  with  Sumter  at  Quinby  Bridge.  Sumter, 
therefore,  when  he  left  the  brigade  to  look  after  his  supplies, 
and  turned  over  the  command  to  Wade  Hampton,  had  left 
it  as  strong  as  it  was  at  that  battle.  What  happened  to  it 
in  the  two  weeks  while  under  Wade  Hampton's  command 
to  reduce  its  number  —  if  its  number  was  reduced  —  we  do 
not  know,  but  surely  it  had  not  disbanded. 

From  his  sick-bed  he  had  written  to  Colonel  Henderson 
suggesting  that,  now  Greene's  army  was  going  into  a  camp 
of  repose,  it  would  be  a  favorable  time  to  furlough  some  of 
his  men  from  time  to  time  ;  and  upon  this  General  Greene, 
whose  hostility  to  him  was  day  by  day  more  apparent, 
seizes  to  charge  him  with  insubordination,  and  as  one  of 
his  biographers  informs  us  contemplated  bringing  him  to 
immediate  trial. ^  But  on  reflection,  we  are  told,  he  saw 
that  that  would  introduce  dissension  in  the  State, 
when  he  needed  every  available  assistance.  It  was  indeed  a 
wise  second  thought.  Was  Sumter  to  be  arrested  and 
tried  because  he  was  so  sick  and  suffering  from  his  wounds 
as  to  be  unfit  for  duty  ?  Where  were  Marion's  men  at  this 
time,  when  Sumter  was  to  be  arrested  and  tried  for  asking 
that  his  might  be  furloughed  from  time  to  time  ?  They 
had  scattered,  and  were  recruiting  for  one  of  their  most 
brilliant  dashes,  for  which  they  were  to  receive  the  thanks 
of  Congress ! 

A  few  lines  of  courteous  reply  to  Colonel  Henderson, 

firmly  refusing  the  application  made  by  him  at  General 

Sumter's  suggestion,  was  all  that  was  needed  or  properly 

justified.      But    unfortunately   it   was    General    Greene's 

1  Great  Commauders  Series,  General  Greene  (F.  V.  Greene). 


422  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

habit  to  discuss  and  criticise  the  conduct  of  officers  to 
their  subordinates  in  command.  General  Sumter  seems 
to  have  heard  indirectly  something  of  this  attack  upon 
him,  and  to  have  written  to  Governor  Rutledge,  who  was 
at  Camden,  upon  the  subject,  for  the  Governor  replies  on 
the  4th  of  September:^  — 

"  I  rec'd  yours  of  the  1st  instant  last  night  after  closing  my  letter  of 
yesterday's  date  to  which  I  refer  as  an  answer  to  the  several  parts  of 
your  letter  to  which  it  applies.  You  have  been  misinformed  with 
respect  to  any  complaint  against  you  having  been  made  to  me,  unless 
it  is  the  petition  from  Bratton's  Regiment,  and  as  to  that,  you  see  I 
have  refer'd  the  matter  to  yourself,  assuring  the  person  [MS.  illegible] 
who  brought  it  that  I  had  no  doubt  of  their  receiving  justice  from 
your  hands.  If  any  complaints  had  been  made  I  certainly  would  have 
made  it  known  to  you  and  to  no  one  else  until  I  heard  what  you  had 
to  say  about  it.  Candour,  justice  to  your  merits  &  services  would 
require  &  my  own  disinclination  to  credit  any  matter  to  your  preju- 
dice would  lead  me  to  take  such  a  step  &  I  should  most  certainly  have 
suspended  my  judgment  or  even  suspicion  of  improper  conduct  until 
I  had  heard  from  you  on  the  matter." 

Whether  intentionally  so  or  not,  this  letter  of  his  Excel- 
lency the  Governor  was  a  severe  commentary  upon  that  of 
General  Greene  to  Colonel  Henderson.  But  was  there 
anything  so  unreasonable  in  General  Sumter's  request  at 
this  time  that  his  followers  should  have  a  respite  from 
service  and  "  as  many  of  them  furloughed  from  time  to 
time  as  the  service  would  admit  of'f  It  will  be  observed 
that  Sumter  did  not  ask,  as  Greene  puts  it,  that  all  his 
brigade  should  be  furloughed,  but  only  as  many  as  the 
service  would  allow.  It  was  therefore  in  the  end  to  rest 
with  General  Greene  himself  to  say  how  many  at  a  time, 
if  any,  could  be  spared. 

But  Sumter's  conduct  has  been  severely  criticised  for 
even  asking  for  the  relief  of  his  men  at  a  time  when  he 

1  Sumter  MSS. 


IN  THE  HETOLUTIbN  42B 

knew  that  General  Greene  was  expecting  active  service, 
and  to  sustain  the  charge  a  letter  from  Greene  to  him  of  the 
24th  of  July  is  quoted,  in  which  Greene  had  written,  "As 
soon  as  reenforcements  arrive  and  the  troops  have  had  a 
little  relaxation  we  will  draw  our  forces  to  a  point  and 
attack  the  enemy  wherever  he  may  be  found."  ^  But  this, 
it  will  be  observed,  was  written  to  Sumter  just  after  his 
return  from  the  expedition  to  the  Low-Country,  and  it 
expressly  deferred  the  proposed  movement  until  the 
arrival  of  reenforcements  which  were  then  expected,  but 
which  never  came  ;  and  after,  also,  the  troops  had  "  had  a 
little  relaxation."  But  it  is  said  that  Greene  had  again 
written  to  Sumter  on  the  28th,  "  Care  should  be  taken  to 
refresh  your  cavalry  as  fast  as  possible,  as  we  shall  no 
doubt  have  severe  duty  in  a  fe\o  days^  But  Sumter's 
suggestion  for  furloughing  his  men  was  made  two  weeks 
after  this,  when  all  the  conditions  had  been  changed,  and 
the  apprehended  occasion  of  severe  duty  had  passed,  and 
when  Greene  himself  had  settled  down  on  the  High  Hills  of 
San  tee  in  a  "camp  of  repose"  and  rest  for  the  remainder  of 
the  summer.  For,  strange  to  say.  Judge  Johnson,  Greene's 
apologist,  while  discussing  this  matter  and  condemning 
Sumter  for  wishing  at  this  time  to  rest  and  furlough  his 
men,  again  and  again  speaks  of  Greene's  camp  on  the 
High  Hills  of  Santee  as  a  "  Camp  of  Repose,"  in  which  a 
few  weeks'  rest  was  necessary  to  relieve  the  American 
army  after  its  exertion.  Indeed,  he  heads  his  chapter  of 
the  time  Camp  of  Repose  on  the  High  Hills  of  Santee.'^ 
The  camp  occupied,  he  says,  a  healthy,  pleasant,  and  abun- 
dant station,  while  the  posts  of  the  enemy  were  wasting 
with  disease.  There  was,  he  says,  at  this  time  no  prospect 
of  the  enemy's  being  reenforced,  he  had  been  driven  from 
the  country  where  he  could  recruit,  had  manifested  no 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  210.  2  /^^yZ.,  179,  185,  189. 


424  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

disposition  for  acting,  and  the  swollen  rivers  from  recent 
rains  precluded  all  possibility  of  movements.  Lord 
Rawdon  had  sailed  for  England  on  the  21st  of  August, 
and  Colonel  Stuart,  upon  whom  the  command  of  the 
British  army  in  the  field  devolved  upon  his  lordship's 
retirement,  had  moved  up  from  Orangeburgh  towards 
McCord's  Ferry,  but  he  had  halted  and  gone  into  camp 
amidst  the  hills  near  the  confluence  of  the  Congaree  and 
the  Wateree.  The  two  armies  lay  there,  almost  in  sight 
of  each  other,  but  with  two  broad,  deep  rivers  between 
them.  The  heat  of  the  weather  was  excessive;  both 
armies  had  suffered  severely  in  the  movements  of  June 
and  July,  but  especially  the  newly  arrived  British  regu- 
lars ;  and  as  in  the  latter  part  of  August  and  beginning  of 
September  the  climate  of  that  part  of  the  country  is  at  its 
worst,  as  if  by  mutual  consent,  says  Johnson,  military 
operation  was  for  a  while  suspended.  ^  At  what  better 
time,  then,  could  Sumter  ask  for  rest  for  his  men  and  horses 
than  while  Greene's  Continentals  had  gone  into  a  camp  of 
repose,  and  the  enemy  had  settled  down  for  the  summer? 
Were  the  partisan  bands  and  State  troops  to  be  awake 
while  the  Continentals  slept? 

General  Sumter's  men  consisted,  it  will  be  borne  in 
mind,  of  two  classes,  (1)  of  those  volunteers  under  Lacey, 
Winn,  Bratton,  Hill,  Taylor,  and  formerly  of  Henry  Hamp- 
ton, who  had  been  with  him  from  the  first,  coming  and  going 
as  the  necessities  of  the  times  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
lives  of  their  families  demanded  — ''  the  unpaid  gentlemen 
of  Carolina."  These,  besides  their  heroic  services  of  the 
last  year,  had  now  been  constantly  in  the  field  since  the 
first  of  the  present.  They  had  been  in  the  campaign  with 
Sumter  in  January,  February,  and  March,  while  Greene 
was  in  North  Carolina,  had  come  out  again  in  April  when 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  206. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  425 

Greene  returned  to  the  State,  and  had  since  been  continu- 
ally in  the  field.  They  were  exhausted  and  needed  rest, 
both  men  and  horses.  (2)  To  these  were  added  the  new 
regiments  of  Mydelton,  Wade  Hampton,  and  Henry  Hamp- 
ton, and  one  now  which  Henderson  himself  was  attempting 
to  raise,  enlisted  under  the  scheme  proposed  by  Sumter  of 
payment  in  kind,  to  wit,  negroes  and  supplies  taken  from 
the  enemy.  A  more  vicious  scheme,  as  we  have  before 
observed,  and  the  evils  of  which  Sumter  himself  recognized, 
could  scarcely  have  been  devised,  one  which  not  even  the 
high  character  of  the  field  officers  selected  to  organize  the 
regiments  could  redeem.  It  incited  plunder  and  aroused 
discontent  when  plunder  was  prohibited.  All  accounts 
agree  as  representing  its  practical  working  as  most  unfortu- 
nate. And  among  its  worst  features  was  that  its  practice 
extended  not  only  to  other  troops,  but  to  the  lower  classes 
of  the  people  among  whom  the  troops  were  quartered. 
Colonel  Wade  Hampton  thus  writes  on  the  27th  of  July, 
from  Friday's  Ferry  :  ^  — 

"  The  situation  in  which  I  found  this  neighborhood  the  day  after 
I  had  the  honor  of  seeing  you  is  truly  to  be  lamented.  Almost  every 
person  who  remained  in  this  settlement  after  the  army  marched 
seems  to  have  been  combined  in  committing  robberies,  the  most  base 
and  inhuman  that  ever  disgraced  mankind. 

"  Colonel  Taylor  who  had  arrived  here  a  few  days  before  me,  had 
apprehended  a  few  of  the  most  notorious  of  these  offenders,  whilst 
the  most  timid  of  those  who  remained  were  busily  employed  in  col- 
lecting and  carrying  into  North  Carolina  and  Virginia  the  very 
considerable  booty  they  had  so  unjustly  acquired.  The  more  daring, 
but  equally  guilty  part  of  this  banditti  seemed  to  threaten  immediate 
destruction  (by  murder,  etc.)  to  those  who  might  presume  to  call  the 
conduct  of  them  or  their  accomplices  into  question.  IMatters  becom- 
ing thus  serious  made  it  necessary  that  something  decisive  should 
take  place  immediately. 

"  With  a  few  of  the  State  troops  and  more  of  the  militia  who  had 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  186. 


426  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

spirit  or  inclination  to  engage  in  it  we  have  secured  all  of  those 
wretches  that  can  be  found,  but  we  find  a  number  of  them,  on  find- 
ing matters  more  likely  to  terminate  against  them,  have  taken  their 
flight  towards  the  northward,"  etc. 

Colonel  Henderson's  career  up  to  the  capture  in  Charles- 
town  had  been  with  the  Continentals  or  Regulars.  He  had 
entered  the  service  as  major  of  the  Second  Regiment  of 
Riflemen  under  Sumter  as  lieutenant-colonel,  which  regi- 
ment after  Sumter's  resignation  he  had  commanded,  as 
the  Sixth  South  Carolina  Continental  Regiment.  Accus- 
tomed in  this  service  to  the  strictest  military  discipline, 
he  had  no  patience  with  the  condition  of  the  command 
over  which  he  was  now  put,  composed  of  a  few  purely 
volunteer  soldiers,  and  the  rest  neither  volunteers  nor 
regulars.  In  this  state  of  mind  he  thus  reports  to  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge :  ^  — 

"  On  my  arrival  to  take  command  of  them  I  found  them  the  most 
discontented  set  of  men  I  ever  saw,  both  men  and  officers ;  a  few 
individuals  excepted  who  regardless  of  any  pecuniary  consideration 
are  determined  to  serve  their  country.  The  thirst  after  plunder  that 
seems  to  prevail  among  the  soldiery  makes  the  command  almost 
intolerable.  This  circumstance  is  most  disagreeable,  as  this  infamous 
practice  seems  to  be  countenanced  by  too  many  officers.  Until  some 
very  severe  examples  are  made  very  little  credit  can  be  expected 
from  them.  The  men  are  likely  and  brave,  and  want  nothing  but 
service  and  discipline  to  make  them  truly  valuable  ;  but  this  is  impos- 
sible to  bring  about  unless  the  necessary  assistance  is  given  by  officers, 
most  of  them  having  no  more  idea  of  subordination  than  a  set  of  raw 
militia." 

But  what  else  was  to  be  expected  of  a  body  raised  as 
this  was  ?  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  was  no 
government  in  South  Carolina  at  this  time.  Governor 
Rutledge  was  about  to  return  to  the  State,  but  had  not  yet 
arrived.     At  the  time  Sumter  fell  upon  this  plan,  which  he 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  211. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  427 

did  with  Greene*s  concurrence,  the  Governor  himself  was 
out  of  the  State,  nor  was  there  any  money.  Continental  or 
State,  with  which  to  pay  the  troops.  It  was  a  measure 
which  Sumter  himself  characterized  as  "  truly  disagreeable, 
such  as  can  only  be  justified  by  our  circumstances  and  the 
necessity  of  the  case."  General  Greene  had  been  pressing 
for  an  organized  body  of  troops  to  remain  in  the  field  for  a 
given  time.  But  he  had  no  money  with  which  to  pay  men 
for  such  service,  nor  supplies  with  which  to  support  them. 
The  truth  is  that  the  whole  army.  Continental  and  State 
troops,  in  South  Carolina  was  living  by  plunder  upon 
friends  or  foes  under  the  name  of  impressment  or  spoils,  the 
difference  being  that  the  State  troops,  being  mounted  and 
engaged  upon  raiding  services,  had  better  opportunities  of 
appropriating  the  spoils  to  themselves.  But  whether  wise  or 
unwise,  the  contract  with  the  State  troops,  as  they  were 
designated,  was  payment  in  kind  from  the  spoils  taken  from 
the  enemy,  and  "  salvage,"  as  it  was  called,  from  property 
of  friends  which  could  be  rescued.  They  had  been  en- 
listed on  these  terms  with  the  concurrence  of  General 
Greene.  And  it  so  happened  that  the  negroes  and  stores 
which  had  been  captured  during  the  active  operations  of 
the  last  few  months  had  been  hurried  to  North  Carolina 
for  safety,  and  then  distribution  was  to  take  place  there. 
It  can  be  readily  imagined,  therefore,  the  impatience  of 
this  class  of  troops,  a  considerable  number  of  whom  were 
from  North  Carolina,  to  obtain  furloughs  to  secure  respec- 
tive shares  of  their  compensation,  and  the  restive  and 
mutinous  condition  of  those  who  were  not  permitted  to  go. 
What  more  opportune  time  could  have  been  selected  for 
the  relief  of  the  one  class,  the  volunteer  partisan  followers 
of  Sumter,  or  more  necessary  for  the  fulfilment  of  the 
terms  of  enlistment  of  the  other,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive. 
If  Sumter  had  been  fully  aware  of  what  was  going  on  at 


428  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

headquarters,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  was  discussed 
in  the  correspondence  between  Greene  and  Lee,  and  of 
Greene's  declared  sentiments  in  regard  to  him,  he  might 
well  have  claimed  in  the  language  of  the  king  of  Israel  of 
old,  "  Consider,  I  pray  you,  and  see  how  he  seeketh  a  quarrel 
against  me,"  for  Greene  was  at  this  time,  with  Lee,  privately 
nursing  still  another  grievance  against  him.  He  was  now, 
at  the  instigation  of  Lee,  charging  to  Sumter's  account  the 
burning  of  Georgetown.  On  the  29th  of  July,  Colonel 
Lee  wrote  to  General  Greene :  — 

"  I  at  this  moment  learn  by  certain  authority  that  General  Sumpter 
has  detached  Captain  Davis  to  Georgetown  to  seize  for  public  use  the 
goods  of  every  sort  that  may  be  found.  It  seems  that  the  Tories  left 
much  linen  cloth  &c.  &c.  in  the  hands  of  Whigs  on  the  evacuation  of 
that  place,  and  that  these  goods  are  now  making  their  appearance  for 
sale.  Your  officers  are  naked  and  I  presume  no  order  of  men  have 
greater  claim  to  your  attention."  ^ 

The  only  plausible  cause,  it  was  said,  ever  given  by  the 
enemy  for  the  destruction  of  the  place  was  "  that  the  Whigs 
were  about  to  draw  from  it  supplies  for  their  army  " ;  that 
the  raking  of  the  streets  by  the  fire  from  a  galley  whilst 
the  town  was  consumed  was  to  prevent  the  merchants  from 
saving  their  goods;  that  it  was  known  that  that  place 
had  begun  to  open  a  trade  with  Havana,  and  that  fast  sail- 
ing boats  did  afterwards  actually  contribute  much  to  sup- 
ply the  wants  of  the  army  through  this  port ;  that  General 
Greene  was  making  arrangements  at  the  time  for  drawing 
by  purchase  from  Georgetown  supplies  to  a  considerable 
amount ;  that  Captain  Conyers  was  detached  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  arrived  only  in  time  to  witness  the  melancholy 
conflagration.  In  short,  most  of  the  town  was  burnt  because 
of  Sumter's  order  to  Captain  Davis.^ 

When  Judge  Johnson  wrote  he  had  only  the  letter  of 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Green,  vol.  II,  215.  2  ij^ia.^  216. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  429 

Lee  to  Greene  which  he  quotes  as  authority  for  the  fact 
that  Sumter  had  sent  Captain  Davis  upon  such  an  errand, 
and  so  only  hypothetic  ally  condemns  Sumter  if  Lee's  charge 
was  true.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Sumter  did  send  Cap- 
tain Davis  for  the  purpose.  Nor  was  there  at  the  time 
any  concealment  or  mystery  about  the  matter,  Sumter 
reporting  it  to  General  Greene.^  The  original  order  is  still 
extant  in  the  possession  of  a  descendant  of  Captain  Davis, 

and  is  as  follows :  — 

"  Camp  at  Great  Savannah, 

"  25  July,  1781. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  With  a  detachment  of  the  State  troops  under  your 
command  you  are  requested  forthwith  to  proceed  to  George  Town 
with  all  expedition  &  there  by  every  possible  means  in  your  power 
secure  all  articles  of  property  belonging  to  the  enemy  &  all  persons 
abetting  or  in  any  wise  acting  inimical  to  the  interests  of  the  United 
States  of  America. 

"  And  all  articles  so  obtained  you'll  be  pleased  to  transport  with  the 
utmost  expedition  to  this  place.  You  are  hereby  authorized  to  im- 
press negroes,  teams,  wagons,  oxen  &  every  other  requisite  to  expe- 
dite &  carry  this  business  into  execution. 

"  You  are  to  move  or  cause  to  be  removed  all  the  Indigo  salt  hospi- 
tal stores  &  all  other  articles  suitable  &  wanted  for  the  army  from 
every  person  without  distinction  except  so  much  as  may  be  necessary 
for  family  use.  You  are  to  observe  that  all  property  or  articles  sold 
by  the  enemy  still  vests  in  the  public  which  is  to  be  taken  &  disposed 
of  accordingly,  the  situation  &  nature  of  the  service  requires  the 
utmost  circumspection  &  vigilance  —  the  worst  of  consequences  is  to  be 
apprehended  from  delays. 

"  To  the  end  that  friends  may  not  be  injured  or  enemys  go  unpun- 
ished you'l  endeavor  to  make  the  necessary  discrimination  &  act 
inflexibly. 

"You'll  inform  me  as  early  as  may  be  of  your  proceedings,  the 
progress  you  have  made  &  prospects  in  view  so  that  if  necessary  hereby 
success  &  support  may  be  afforded  you. 

"  I  am  ever  your  most  obdt.  &  hTb  servt. 

"  Capt.  W.  R.  Davis."  "  T"^^'  Sumter. 

1  Sumter's  letters,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  62. 


430  HISTOBY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Wherein  was  the  impropriety  of  this  order  it  is  difficult 
to  conceive.  Governor  Rutledge  had  not,  at  this  time,  the 
last  of  July,  yet  returned  to  South  Carolina,  and  Sumter 
was  in  command  of  all  the  militia  and  State  troops,  and 
was  daily  in  communication  with  General  Greene,  who 
depended  upon  him  in  a  great  measure  for  supplies  and 
horses  which  Sumter  was  taking  from  the  Tories,^  and  the 
very  day  upon  which  he  issued  this  order  to  Captain  Davis, 
Sumter  sends  to  General  Greene  an  inventory  of  all  the 
property  taken  from  the  enemy  during  his  expedition  in 
the  Low-Country.2  Surely,  under  these  circumstances, 
independently  of  his  own  authority  as  commanding  the 
State  forces  in  South  Carolina,  he  had  every  reason  to 
suppose  himself  authorized  and  charged  by  Greene  him- 
self to  seize  and  secure  the  enemy's  property,  and  to  im- 
press all  articles  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  army, 
whether  in  the  hands  of  friends  or  foe.  If  there  really 
was  any  occasion  for  excepting  Georgetown  from  Sumter's 
vigilance  and  action,  it  behooved  General  Greene  to  inform 
him  of  it.  But  why  attribute  the  burning  of  Georgetown 
to  Sumter's  order,  which  there  is  no  evidence  that  Captain 
Davis  carried  out,  nor  of  which  is  there  any  that  the  enemy 
were  even  aware,  rather  than  to  the  fact  which  Judge 
Johnson  himself  states,  namely,  that  an  attempt  was  being 
made  to  open  this  port  to  communication  with  Havana? 
The  fact  "that  the  Whigs  were  about  to  draw  from  it 
[Georgetown]  supplies  for  the  army "  coming  in  from 
Havana,  would  very  much  more  naturally  account  for 
the  enemy's  destruction  of  the  place,  than  the  mere  fact  that 
Sumter  had  sent  an  officer  to  seize  the  enemy's  property 

1  See  Greene's  letters  to  Sumter,  April  19,  1781,  Year  Book,  City  of 
Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  90  ;  April  30,  ibid.,  93  ;  May  4,  ibid.,  95  ; 
May  6,  ibid.,  97  ;  May  17,  ibid.,  101-102  ;  June  23,  ibid.,  115-116. 

-  Year  Book,  City  oC  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  48. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  431 

in  the  town.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  impression  that 
this  suggestion  was  nothing  more  than  excuse  for  a  quar- 
rel, and  was  fitly  concluded  by  a  letter  from  Lee  to  Greene, 
joining  in  denunciation  of  Sumter,  which  ends  with  this 
extraordinary  statement :  ^  "  General  Sumter  is  become  almost 
universalis/  odious,  as  far  as  I  can  discover.  I  lament  that 
a  man  of  his  turn  was  ever  useful,  or  being  once  deservedly 
great,  shall  want  the  wisdom  necessary  to  continue  so,  and 
preserve  his  reputation.'''' 

The  suggestion  in  regard  to  furloughing  his  men,  and 
the  order  to  Captain  Davis  for  the  seizure  of  property  in 
Georgetown,  were  the  two  events,  it  is  said,  which  led 
General  Greene  into  that  review  of  General  Sumter's 
whole  conduct  since  he  had  command  in  the  department, 
from  which  General  Greene  imbibed  the  opinion  that  he 
had  never  been  cordially  supported  by  that  officer,  and 
from  which  he  only  doubted  whether  to  attribute  General 
Sumter's  conduct  to  want  of  cordiality  in  contributing 
to  the  success  of  measures  which  should  crown  the  com- 
mander of  the  Southern  Department  with  honors,  or  an 
avidity  for  personal  distinction  which  impelled  him  to  a 
deviation  from  the  plan  of  others  that  he  might  enjoy  the 
undivided  honor  of  his  own  achievements.^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Sumter  differed  radically 
with  General  Greene  as  to  the  conduct  of  military  opera- 
tion in  the  State ;  but  so  also  did  Marion  and  Lee. 
Greene  was,  with  one  notable  exception,  always  for  some 
grand  general  engagement,  while  Sumter,  Marion,  and 
Lee  believed  in  the  slow  but  surer  process  of  attrition,  in 
ceaseless  activity  upon  the  outposts  and  communications 
of  the  enemy.  Greene,  in  his  general  engagements,  was 
always  defeated,  as  at  Guilford,  Hobkirk's  Hill,  and  Ninety 
Six,  and,  indeed,  again,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  at  Eutaw ; 
1  Campaigns  in  the  CaroUnas  (Lee),  450.  2  jj)i(ji,^  214. 


432  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

while  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee,  though  not  always  victori- 
ous, achieved  many  brilliant  results,  and  were  uniformly 
successful  in  accomplishing  their  purpose  of  wearing  away 
the  enemy  in  smaller  affairs.  There  was  another  point  of 
difference  as  between  Greene  and  Lee  on  the  one  side,  and 
Sumter  and  Marion  on  the  other.  And  that  was  in  the 
assumed  superiority  of  the  former  as  regulars  over  the 
latter  as  militia.  Sumter  and  Marion,  as  we  have  had 
occasion  before  to  observe,  had  each  begun  his  military 
career  in  the  French  War  in  expeditions  against  the  Ind- 
ians, and  had  both  been  in  the  service  as  Continentals, 
and  in  that  part  of  the  army  Marion  had  probably  seen  as 
much  service  as  either  Greene  or  Lee,  if  not  more.  While 
in  the  volunteer  line  the  two  had  kept  up  the  war  without 
Greene  or  Lee,  and  had  accomplished  more  than  either  of 
them  could  boast.  It  was  the  just  complaint  of  both 
Sumter  and  Marion  that  Lee  was  allowed  to  reap  alike 
the  honors  and  material  advantages  of  their  plans  and 
work.  To  such  an  extent  had  they  felt  this,  that  within 
a  few  days  of  each  other  each  had  tendered  his  resignation. 
But  there  was  no  ground  whatsoever  to  charge  Sumter 
with  standing  off  from  Greene's  support  when  he  had  it  in 
his  power  to  aid  him.  True,  he  was  not  able  to  furnish 
a  thousand  men  himself,  independently  of  Marion,  when 
their  united  forces  did  not  reach  that  number,  with  which 
to  join  Greene  in  a  great  battle  upon  his  return  to  the 
State.  True,  too,  he  did  urge  that  those  whom  he  could 
bring  out  would  be  best  employed  in  Rawdon's  rear,  and 
not  in  a  general  engagement ;  but  in  this  Greene  had 
yielded  to  his  views  as  being  sound,  and  Sumter,  carrying 
them  out,  had  compelled  Lord  Rawdon's  evacuation  of 
Camden,  though  his  lordship  had  beaten  Greene  in  the 
field.  When  the  occasion  did  present  itself  for  one  decisive 
blow  upon  the  retreating  enemy,  already  well-nigh  routed, 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  433 

Greene  had  turned  aside,  against  Sumter's  advice,  for  the 
siege  of  a  post  in  his  rear,  which  was  about  to  fall  of  itself, 
and  which  was  only  saved  from  doing  so  by  his  effort  to 
take  it. 

Was  it  not  Greene  himself  who,  as  appears  by  his  corre- 
spondence, was  avaricious  of  personal  distinction,  and  jeal- 
ous for  the  undivided  honor  of  his  achievements  ?  It  is  in 
this  spirit  that  he  writes  to  Lee,  when  giving  his  reason  for 
abandoning  South  Carolina  and  going  to  Virginia,  that  the 
plans  being  laid  and  the  position  taken  in  South  Carolina, 
the  rest  would  be  a  war  of  posts,  and  the  most  that  would 
be  left  to  the  commanding  officer  would  be  to  make  de- 
tachments, and  give  the  command  of  them  to  the  pi'oper 
officers,  to  whom  the  glory  would  helong  for  executing  the  busi- 
ness} The  same  spirit  prompted  his  letter  to  Governor 
Reed,  belittling  the  achievements  of  Sumter  and  Marion, 
and  declaring  that  they  did  little  more  than  keep  the  dis- 
pute alive. 

Though  General  Greene  had  been  disappointed  that  the 
militia  of  Rowan  and  Mecklenburg  counties  had  not  joined 
him  as  he  had  expected,  he  nevertheless  received  a  consid- 
erable reenforcement  from  North  Carolina  while  at  his 
camp  of  rest.  When,  before  Ninety  Six,  he  had  become 
satisfied  that  he  must  no  more  rely  upon  drawing  horses 
or  men  from  Virginia,  he  despatched  Colonel  Malmedy, 
who,  it  will  be  recollected,  escaped  from  Charlestown  be- 
fore its  fall 2  and  who  had  now  recently  joined  him,  to  wait 
upon  the  legislature  of  North  Carolina,  then  in  session, 
and  press  upon  them  the  necessities  of  his  situation.  The 
application  was  promptly  met,  and  200  horses,  a  monthly 
draft  of  militia  to  keep  constantly  in  the  field  2000  men, 
and  an  immediate  draft  of  1500  to  march  forthwith  to  the 

1  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  356. 

^Ilist.  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  480. 

VOL.    IV.  —  2  P 


434  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

army,  and  to  serve  there  three  months,  were  voted  without 
hesitation. 

While  the  main  body  of  the  army  was  resting  on  the 
hills.  Colonel  Washington  was  detached  down  the  country 
across  the  Santee  to  strike  all  the  communications  between 
the  enemy  and  Charlestown,  and  to  cooperate  with  Marion 
and  Maham  in  covering  the  country  on  the  lower  Santee. 
Lee  was  sent  upwards  along  the  north  bank  of  the  Congaree 
to  operate  with  Colonel  Henderson,  in  command  of  Sum- 
ter's brigade.  Colonel  Harden  at  the  same  time,  with  his 
mounted  men  collected  beyond  the  Edisto,  was  keeping  a 
watch  upon  the  enemy  in  that  quarter.  Unfortunately, 
the  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne  had  much  of  its  desired 
effect  in  detaining  the  inhabitants  of  this  section  from 
joining  Harden.  General  Greene,  in  speaking  of  the  efforts 
of  the  cavalry  in  their  expeditions,  asserts  that  their  enter- 
prise was  never  excelled  in  the  world.  Washington  suc- 
ceeded in  falling  in  with  two  parties  of  the  enemy's  horse 
and  making  fifty  prisoners.  Lee,  crossing  the  Congaree 
with  the  cavalry,  penetrated  between  the  main  body  of  the 
enemy  and  his  post  at  Orangeburgh,  and  in  sight  of  the 
latter  place  dispersed  or  captured  a  number  of  their  patrol 
parties.^  Harden,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  so  fortunate ; 
a  Captain  Connaway  of  the  Royal  militia  of  Orangeburgh, 
about  the  1st  of  August,  attacked  one  of  his  parties  in  the 
forks  of  the  Edisto,  at  the  head  of  Four  Mile  Creek,  and 
killed  eighteen  and  dispersed  the  rest ;  ^  and  two  able  and 
daring  partisan  leaders  of  the  British  Loyalists  made  their 
way  to  the  upper  country  about  this  time,  and  began  a  series 
of  the  most  sanguinary  attacks  upon  the  small  posts  in  that 
region.  One  Hezekiah  Williams,  on  the  6th  of  September, 
attacked  a  party  of  Whig  militia  in  Turkey  Creek,  a  branch 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  207. 

2  The  Hoyal  Gazette,  September  12,  1781. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  435 

of  the  Savannah,  in  what  is  now  Edgefield  County,  killing 
and  wounding  ten.^  The  other  was  the  notorious  Bloody 
Bill  Cuningham,  whose  exploits  will  presently  be  related. 

For  some  time  after  the  removal  of  Colonel  Stuart  to 
his  position  near  McCord's  Ferry,  his  difficulties  in  obtain- 
ing provisions  became  very  great.  All  the  grain  that 
could  not  be  removed  across  the  river  had  been  destroyed ; 
and  every  boat  above  and  below  the  confluence  of  the  Con- 
garee  and  the  Wateree  was  either  removed  or  sunk  and 
concealed.  The  consequence  was  that  within  arm's  reach 
of  plenty  Colonel  Stuart  found  himself  obliged  to  depend 
on  the  country  below  for  supplies.  This  compelled  him 
to  strengthen  his  post  at  Dorchester  in  order  to  cover 
his  communication  by  Orangeburgh,  and  to  post  Major 
McArthur  at  the  CoUetons'  place,  Fair  Lawn,  near  the 
head  of  the  navigation  of  Cooper  River,  from  which  sup- 
plies received  from  Charlestown  were  transported  by  land 
to  his  headquarters.  And  as  this  communication  was 
interrupted  and  watched  by  Washington,  Marion,  and 
Maham,  in  order  to  secure  the  means  of  communicating 
with  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Congaree  and  drawing  sup- 
plies from  thence,  the  British  commander  was  under  the 
necessity  of  transporting  boats  from  Fair  Lawn  to  the 
Congaree  on  wagon  wheels.^ 

Both  armies  had  thus  settled  down  to  comparative  in- 
action for  the  rest  of  the  heated  season,  when  events  at  the 
North  and  in  Virginia  compelled  General  Greene  to  resume 
offensive  operations  before  the  season  had  half  elapsed.  It 
was  not  until  the  month  of  June  that  the  army  under 
General  Washington  moved  out  of   winter  quarters  and 

1  The  Boyal  GazeMe^  September  12,  1781.  This  officer's  name  is  given 
in  the  Gazette  as  Jeptha  Williams  ;  but  in  the  issue  of  October  13  this  is 
corrected,  and  his  name  given  as  Hezekiah. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  208. 


436  HISTORY    OP   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  campaign  of  1781  was  commenced  in  the  North.  Up 
to  this  time  the  French  army,  which  had  arrived  in  July, 
1780,  had  remained  quietly  at  Newport.  ^  At  an  interview 
between  General  Washington  and  Count  de  Rochambeau 
it  had  then  been  agreed  to  inaugurate  a  campaign  by 
offensive  operations  against  New  York ;  and  the  French 
army  approaching  the  North  River,  the  2d  of  July  was 
appointed  for  the  attack,  but  the  plan  failed.  The  ap- 
pearance of  the  combined  armies  had,  however,  induced 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  to  recall  a  large  portion  of  the  British 
and  German  troops  from  Virginia,  when,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  arrival  of  a  reenforcement  of  three  thousand 
men  from  Europe  allowed  Sir  Henry  to  countermand  this 
order ;  but  in  doing  so  he  directed  Lord  Cornwallis  (who, 
having  marched  from  Wilmington  and,  notwithstanding 
the  opposition  of  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  had  overrun 
Virginia)  to  take  some  strong  post  on  the  Chesapeake  from 
which  he  might  either  reenforce  Sir  Henry  in  New  York, 
or  proceed  to  execute  the  plans  meditated  against  the 
States  lying  on  that  bay,  as  future  events  might  demand. 
In  this  condition  of  affairs  at  the  North  and  in  Virginia 
it  will  be  perceived  how  important  a  service  to  the  coun- 
try at  large  were  the  operations  in  South  Carolina,  which 
constrained  Colonel  Gould  to  land  the  three  regiments 
appearing  off  Charlestown  bar,  and  to  employ  them  here 
in  serving  Lord  Rawdon  rather  than  reenforcing  Lord 
Cornwallis  as  intended. 

Early  in  August,  Washington  learnt  that  De  Grasse, 
with  the  long-expected  second  division  of  the  French  fleet, 
was  to  have  sailed  from  Cape  Frangois  on  the  3d  of  that 
month,  with  a  squadron  of  the  line  having  on  board  thirty- 
two  hundred  soldiers,  but  that  he  was  under  engagements 
to  return  to  the  West  Indies  by  the  middle  of  October. 
1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution  (McCrady),  846. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  437 

Whatever  use  was  to  be  made  of  this  force  it  was  thus 
imperative  should  be  determined  on  at  once.  The  time 
allowed  was  deemed  too  short  for  operations  against  New 
York,  and  Washington  turned  his  views  to  Virginia,  and 
resolved  to  lead  the  Southern  expedition  in  person.  Gen- 
eral Heath  was  placed  in  command  of  the  force  left 
before  New  York  to  employ  the  attention  of  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  while  Washington,  with  all  the  troops  of  Rocham- 
beau  and  a  strong  detachment  from  the  Continental  army, 
on  the  19th  of  August,  began  his  march  for  Virginia.  It 
was  anticipated  that,  as  soon  as  Cornwallis  found  himself 
cut  off  by  the  French  fleet  from  communication  with  Sir 
Henry  Clinton,  he  would  attempt  to  escape  by  a  sudden 
march  to  Charlestown.  To  meet  this,  Lafayette  was  re- 
quested to  make  such  a  disposition  of  his  army  as  should 
be  best  calculated  to  prevent  the  movement,  and  Greene, 
receiving  letters  from  the  Commander-in-chief  of  the  con- 
dition of  affairs,  determined  to  resume  offensive  opera- 
tions in  South  Carolina  so  as  to  prevent  any  assistance 
from  this  quarter.^  Thus  was  it  that  the  Camp  of  Repose 
on  the  High  Hills  of  Santee  was  broken  up  earlier  than 
had  been  anticipated. 

On  the  22d  of  August  Greene  called  in  all  of  his 
detachments  except  those  under  Maham,  Harden,  and 
Marion,  and  appointed  a  general  rendezvous  at  Friday's 
Ferry.  Great  rains  had  now  laid  all  the  swamps  which 
border  the  Wateree  four  miles  in  width  under  water,  and 
without  great  difficulty  and  some  danger  to  his  advance, 
Greene  could  not  cross  the  river  without  ascending  it  to 
Camden.  By  that  route  he  reached  Howell's  Ferry  on  the 
Congaree  on  the  28th,  and  ordered  his  detachments  to  join 
him  at  that  place,  intending  immediately  to  cross  the  river 
and  advance  upon  Colonel  Stuart.  That  officer,  however, 
1  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  IV,  469,  541. 


438  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

learning  of  the  movement,  fell  back  upon  his  reenforce- 
ments  and  took  a  position  at  the  Eutaw  Springs. 

As  the  British  army  had  moved  by  forced  marches  to  a 
distance  of  forty  miles  below  its  position  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Congaree,  it  was  no  longer  in  the  power  of  the  Ameri- 
can commander  to  force  it  to  action.  He  therefore  deter- 
mined for  the  present  a  discontinuance  of  the  pursuit,  and, 
crossing  the  Congaree,  moved  slowly  down  the  south 
bank,  intending  to  take  post  at  Motte's  and  await  events. 
Colonel  Lee,  in  the  meantime,  was  pushed  forward  to 
watch  Stuart's  movements,  and  General  Pickens,  who  had 
now,  in  the  absence  of  Sumter  and  Marion,  taken  command 
of  all  the  State  troops  present  with  Greene,  was  ordered 
to  move  leisurely  down  and  take  a  position  to  observe  the 
British  garrison  still  remaining  at  Orangeburgh.  These 
slow  movements,  indicative  of  a  want  of  confidence,  prob- 
ably induced  Colonel  Stuart  to  halt  and  give  battle.  He 
ordered  up  the  detachment  from  Fair  Lawn  to  reenforce 
him,  while  the  garrison  at  Orangeburgh  proceeded  across 
the  country  below  and  replaced  the  garrison  drawn  from 
Fair  Lawn.^  This  movement  Stuart  was  enabled  to  make 
without  fearing  for  the  safety  of  his  post  at  Fair  Lawn,  for 
Marion  at  that  time  had  disappeared  from  that  neighbor- 
hood.    His  movements  now  require  our  attention. 

Harden,  who  was  still  operating  on  the  Edisto,  was  at 
this  time  hard  pressed  by  a  British  party  of  four  or 
five  hundred,  recruited  from  the  Loyalists  who  had  been 
driven  to  Charlestown,  while  on  the  other  hand  his  own 
party  was  dwindling  under  the  necessity  which  the  rav- 
ages of  these  men  imposed  upon  his  followers  to  look  to 
the  safety  of  their  families,  and  the  terror  excited  by  the 
execution  of  Hayne.  In  this  distress  Harden  appealed  to 
Marion,  who  lay  at  Peyree's  plantation  in  St.  Stephen's 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  216,  217. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  439 

Parish.     This   officer  at   once   applied   to   Greene  to    be 
allowed  to  undertake  an  enterprise  for  Harden's  relief. 

As  soon  as  permission  was  obtained,  Marion,  collecting 
up  his  men  who  had  been  resting,  detached  a  mounted 
party  under  Captain  George  Cooper  to  the  neighborhood 
of  Dorchester  and  Monck's  Corner  to  create  a  diversion 
there,  whilst  he  with  about  two  hundred  picked  men  by 
a  circuitous  route  and  forced  march  of  at  least  one  hun- 
dred miles,  crossed  the  Edisto,  joined  Harden  on  the  31st 
of  August,  and  approached  the  British.  When  sufficiently 
near  he  drew  up  his  men  in  a  swamp  upon  the  road  near 
Parker's  Ferry,  and  sent  out  some  of  his  swiftest  horses 
to  lead  the  British  into  the  ambuscade.  While  lying 
there  a  small  party  of  Tories  crossed  at  the  ferry,  and 
passing  on,  one  of  them  called  out  that  he  saw  a  white 
feather,  and  fired  his  gun.  This  occasioned  an  exchange 
of  a  few  shots  on  both  sides,  but,  as  is  supposed,  it  was 
thought  by  Major  Fraser,  who  commanded  the  British,  to 
be  only  Harden's  party  that  was  in  the  swamp ;  he  pur- 
sued the  horsemen  sent  out  as  a  decoy,  and  led  his  corps 
in  full  charge  within  forty  or  fifty  yards  parallel  to  the 
ambuscade.  A  deadly  fire  from  the  swamp  was  the  first 
notice  he  had  that  a  greater  force  than  Harden's  was 
there.  Fraser  attempted  to  wheel  and  charge  into  the 
swamp,  but  only  exposed  his  men  the  more,  as  they  were 
thus  delayed  before  the  fire,  and  were  wedged  up  on  a 
causeway  so  closely  that  every  shot  had  its  effect.  Find- 
ing all  his  efforts  ineffectual,  Fraser  at  length  retreated 
along  the  road,  and  thus  passed  again  the  whole  ambus- 
cade. A  large  body  of  British  infantry  were  now  seen 
advancing,  and  Marion  retreated  without  counting  the 
dead,  but  men  and  horses  were  seen  lying  promiscuously 
in  heaps  on  the  road.  Marion's  retreat  was  probably  owing 
more  to  the  want  of  ammunition  than  to  the  advance  of 


440  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  British  infantry,  accustomed  as  he  was  often  to  en- 
counter the  enemy  with  success.  A  party  under  Captain 
Melton  went  over  the  battle-ground  next  day  and  counted 
twenty-seven  dead  horses ;  the  men  had  been  buried.  But 
though  the  loss  could  not  be  ascertained,  the  effect  of  this 
well-conducted  affair  soon  became  evident,  for  at  the 
battle  of  Eutaw,  nine  days  after,  the  enemy  had  but  few 
cavalry  in  the  field. 

In  the  meantime  Captain  Cooper  passed  on  to  the 
Cypress  swamp,  and  there  routed  a  party  of  Tories,  and 
then,  proceeding  down  the  road,  he  drove  off  the  cattle 
from  before  the  enemy's  fort  at  Dorchester.  Thence  he 
moved  down  the  Charlestown  road,  and  finding  a  body  of 
Tories  in  a  brick  church  within  twelve  miles  of  the  town, 
he  charged  and  drove  them  before  him.  Then  passing  into 
the  Goose  Creek  road  he  proceeded  to  the  Ten  Mile  House, 
returned  and  passed  over  Goose  Creek  bridge,  took  a  cir- 
cuitous route  around  the  British  at  Monck's  Corner,  and 
arrived  in  camp  at  Peyre's  plantation,  where  Marion  now 
lay,  with  many  prisoners  and  without  the  loss  of  a  man.^ 

To  cross  the  country  from  St.  Stephen's  to  the  Edisto, 
passing  through  both  lines  of  the  enemy's  communication 
with  Charlestown ;  to  surprise  and  defeat  and  disperse 
parties  much  superior  to  his  own  ;  to  return  by  the  same 
route,  pass  the  Santee  safely ;  to  deliver  his  prisoners  and 
return  twenty  miles  below  Eutaw  Springs  to  watch  the 
communication  between  that  place  and  Fair  Lawn;  then 
at  the  call  of  Greene  to  make  a  circuit  and  pass  the  enemy 
so  as  to  reach  a  position  on  the  south  side  of  the  Santee  in 
the  track  of  Greene's  advance, — was  all  the  work  of  six  days. 
These  movements  of  Marion  and  of  his  gallant  officers 
merited  and  received  the  particular  thanks  of  Congress.^ 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion^  126-128. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  218. 


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To  Nelson's  Ferry  1  Jtftis 


CHAPTER  XIX 

1781 

Johnson  observes  that  it  is  not  true,  as  some  authors 
assert,  that  General  Greene  delayed  his  advance,  awaiting 
Marion's  arrival  upon  his  return  from  Edisto.  He  says 
that,  until  Greene  had  reached  Fort  Motte,  it  had  been  his 
intention  to  attack  Stuart  without  the  aid  of  Marion; 
that  Greene  indeed  believed  that  the  British  commander 
was  desirous  to  avoid  a  combat ;  and  that  it  was  not  until 
he  learned  that  the  detachment  from  Fair  Lawn  had 
marched  to  reenforce  Stuart,  and  that  the  garrison  from 
Orangeburgh  was  taking  position  to  support  him,  that  he 
became  convinced  that  Colonel  Stuart  meant  to  measure 
swords  with  him.  That  then  Greene  deemed  it  necessary 
to  order  Marion  to  his  support.  But,  however  that  may 
be,  Greene  in  his  official  report  states  that  he  began  his 
march  on  the  5th  of  September,  and  advanced  by  small 
marches  as  well  to  disguise  his  intention  as  to  give  time  to 
General  Marion,  who  had  been  detached  to  join  him.^ 
The  order  to  Marion  was  dated  the  4th.  It  found  Marion 
already  returned,  and  on  the  next  day  Marion  was  quietly 
awaiting  Greene  at  Henry  Laurens's  plantation,  seventeen 
miles  above  the  enemy.  Here  Greene  found  him  on  hand, 
and  ordering  up  General  Pickens  with  his  men  from  Ninety 
Six,  and  who  had  now  also  taken  command  of  Sumter's 
State  troops,  then  under  Henderson,  the  6th  was  devoted 

1  Appendix  to  Tarleton's  Campaigns^  513,  514. 
441 


442  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  rest  and  preparation  for  battle.  On  the  7th,  the  army 
marched  to  Burdell's  Tavern  on  the  Congaree  road,  seven 
miles  from  Eutaw.  Baggage,  tents,  and  everything  that 
could  embarrass  or  detain  had  been  left  under  guard  at 
Motte's. 

The  number  of  men  taken  into  action  at  Eutaw,  on 
either  side,  has  never  been  definitely  ascertained.  Johnson 
gives  the  following  as  the  nearest  estimate  of  that  of  the 
Americans:  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Continentals  or 
regulars,  1256  ;  the  cavalry  of  the  South  Carolina  State 
Troops  in  action,  72,  and  the  infantry,  73  ;  the  militia  of 
North  Carolina,  about  150;  those  of  Sumter's  and  Pickens's 
brigades  then  in  the  field,  307.  The  number  of  Marion's 
troops  could  not  have  exceeded  40  cavalry  and  200  infan- 
try. Allowing  200  for  the  camp  guard,  then  forty  miles  in 
the  rear,  Greene's  whole  force  could  not  have  much  ex- 
ceeded 2000  combatants.^  This  is  the  estimate  also  of 
Ramsay .2  Lee  places  the  numbers  a  little  higher,  2300, 
but  gives  no  details.^  The  Continentals  were  composed  of 
those  brought  by  Greene  on  his  return  to  South  Carolina, 
with  the  addition  of  those  from  North  Carolina  who  had 
joined  him  under  Major  Eaton,  220,  and  200  levies,^  but 
both  of  which  detachments  were  now  greatly  reduced. 
Johnson  had  previously  stated  that  almost  500  North  Caro- 
lina militia  had  joined  Greene  on  the  High  Hills  of  Santee, 
but  that  many  of  these  were  destitute  of  arms,  and  all  of  the 
levies  for  the  North  Carolina  regulars  had  to  be  furnished 
with  the  arms  he  intended  for  the  troops  he  had  proposed 
to  raise  in  South  Carolina.    In  giving  the  disposition  of  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  219. 

2  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  257. 

3  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776,  467.  Gordon  says,  "  2600  does  not  seem 
an  exaggerated  estimate  of  Greene's  total  force."  —  Gordon's  J.??i.  TFar, 
vol.  IV,  168. 

*  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  208. 


I  IN   THE   REVOLUTION  443 

troops  in  line  of  battle  the  same  author  describes  the 
second  line  as  composed  of  Continental  troops,  to  wit: 
the  North  Carolina  line  350,  the  Virginians  250,  the 
Marylanders  250.  This  would  leave  Kirkwood's  Dela- 
wares,  Washington's  Cavalry,  and  Lee's  Legion  together 
to  count  but  406,  in  order  to  make  up  1256,  the  number 
at  which  he  puts  the  American  regulars.  Classified  by 
States,  Greene's  army  was  thus  composed: —  ^^ 


South  Carolina  Volunteers  or  Militia,  Sumter  and  Pickens, 

307,  Marion,  240 547 

South  Carolina  State  Troops,  Cavalry  72,  Infantry  73    .     .  145    692 

North  Carolina  Continentals  (Sumner) 350 

North  Carolina  Militia  (Malniedy) 150    500 

Virginia  Continentals,  Infantry  (Campbell) 250 

Virginia  Continentals,  Cavalry  (Washington) _80     330 

Maryland  Continentals  (Howard) 250 

Delaware  Continentals  (Kirkwood),  Lee's  Legion  ....  320 

20921 

The  exact  number  of  the  British  force  under  Colonel 
Stuart  is  not  known.  In  his  report  of  the  action  to  Lord 
Cornwallis  he  states  that  he  knew  the  enemy  were  much 
superior  to  him  in  numbers,^  but  as  he  had  just  stated  that 

1  General  de  Peyster  in  his  account  of  the  battle  of  Eutaw  Springs,  in 
The,  United  Service  Magazine^  September,  1881,  p.  321  n,,  observes:  "It 
is  just  as  much  a  perversion  of  language  to  style  the  Southern  levies  or 
drafts  which  served  under  Greene  in  the  Carolinas  militia  in  the  sense 
that  the  term  is  applied  to  the  phantasm  organizations  recognized  as 
such  at  the  North  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation  as  to 
make  any  difference  between  the  Loyal  organizations  in  the  service  of  the 
Crown  and  the  British  Regulars  which  were  sent  out  from  the  mother 
country.  The  fact  is,  the  fire,  individually  and  collectively,  of  the  Loyal 
Battalion  was  much  more  fatal  than  that  of  the  Regulars,  as  man  for  man 
the  rank  and  file  were  physically  and  intellectually  superior."  There  is 
much  truth  in  these  remarks  ;  but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there 
were  no  levies  or  drafts  of  militia  in  South  Carolina,  for  the  reason  that 
there  was  no  civil  government  in  the  State.   There  was,  in  fact,  no  militia. 

2  Appendix  to  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  510. 


444  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

the  rebel  army  consisted  of  near  four  thousand  men,  it  is 
clear  that  no  value  can  be  placed  upon  his  estimate  of  their 
relative  strength.  The  British  regular  force  at  the  time 
in  South  Carolina  was  estimated  at  4000,  besides  1000 
Loyalists  under  arms  and  400  cavalry.  The  garrison 
of  Charlestown  was  composed  of  Loyalists  and  500  reg- 
ulars, and  Johnson  estimates  that,  after  allowing  for  the 
garrisons  at  Orangeburgh  and  Dorchester,  and  for  the  sick 
and  detached,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  force  under 
Colonel  Stuart  could  have  been  less  than  2300,  which 
agrees  also  with  Lee's  estimate.^  His  force  appears  to 
have  consisted  of  his  own  regiment,  the  8d  or  Buffs ;  the 
Flank  Battalion,  as  it  was  called,  that  is,  the  six  flank 
companies  of  the  three  regiments  lately  arrived,  which 
marched  with  Lord  Rawdon  in  June  for  the  relief  of 
Ninety  Six  under  the  command  of  Major  Majoribanks  of 
the  Nineteenth  Regiment,  which  officer  commanded  them 
in  this  action ;  the  remains  of  the  Sixty-third  and  Sixty- 
fourth  regiments  which  had  served  the  whole  of  the  war ; 
the  troops  who  had  formed  the  garrison  of  Ninety  Six,  that 
is,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Cruger's  Battalion  of  De  Lancey's 
Brigade  of  New  York,  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Allen's  Bat- 
talion of  New  Jersey  Loyalists ;  and  the  New  York  Volun- 
teers under  Major  Sheridan.  In  addition  to  these  he  had 
the  cavalry  raised  by  the  Loyalists  in  Charlestown,  under 
Major  Coffin,  a  body  which,  though  commanded  by  an  able 
officer,  was  numerically  and  individually  greatly  inferior 
to  the  American  cavalry.  In  artillery  the  armies  were  about 
equal.  The  troops  on  both  sides,  with  probably  only  the 
exception  of  the  North  Carolina  new  levies  and  militia, 
had  all  seen  service,  and  most  of  them  were  well-disciplined 
troops.     It  is  a  curious   circumstance,  however,  that  the 

1  See  also  General  de  Peyster,  "Battle  of  Eutaw  Springs,"  The  United 
Service  Magazine,  September,  1881,  325. 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  445 

military  experiences  of  the  troops  in  this  action  had  not  all 
been  upon  the  side  on  which  they  fought.  A  large  portion 
of  the  old  provincial  regiments  of  the  British  in  these  days 
consisted  of  American  deserters  from  the  Continental  line, 
and  it  was  said  they  added  to  the  British  discipline  the  pre- 
cision of  American  marksmen;  and  so  also  many  of  the 
Continental  troops  on  the  American  side  had  been  recruited 
from  the  discharged  soldiers  and  deserters  from  the  British 
lines.  To  such  an  extent  was  this  the  case  that  it  is 
reported  General  Greene  was  often  heard  to  say,  as  we  have 
quoted  in  a  former  volume,  "  that  at  the  close  of  the  war 
we  fought  the  enemy  with  British  soldiers  ;  and  they  fought 
us  with  those  of  America."  ^  It  is  to  be  observed  also,  that 
while  the  Continental  troops  are  properly  credited  to  the  dif- 
ferent States  as  classified  in  the  foregoing  table,  it  does  not 
follow  that  they  were  recruited  in  the  respective  States  to 
which  they  are  so  credited.  The  officers  of  the  Continental 
regiments  were  generally  of  the  State  to  which  the  regi- 
ment belonged,  though  this  even  was  not,  without  excep- 
tion, true;  but  the  men  were  simply  hired  soldiers,  as 
regulars  usually  are,  taken  wherever  they  could  be  found. 
During  the  year  the  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia 
troops  had  been  in  South  Carolina,  the  composition  of 
their  ranks  had  been  greatly  changed  by  casualties,  dis- 
charges and  desertions,  on  the  one  hand,  and  recruiting 
from  discharged  British  soldiers  and  deserters  on  the  other. 
It  is  claimed  that  the  newly  raised  State  troops  of  South 
Carolina,  whose  pay  was  in  negroes,  salt,  and  supplies, 
salvage  as  it  was  called,  was  largely  recruited  in  the 
counties  of  Mecklenburg  and  Rowan,  North  Carolina. 2 
Such  a  claim  may  readily  be  admitted  on  the  part  of  South 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  220 ;  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Eevolu- 
tion,  1775-80  (McCrady),  302. 

"^No.  Ca.,  1780-81  (Schenck),  441. 


446  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Carolina,  for  men  who  would  fight  only  for  a  share  of 
plunder  were  not  particularly  an  honor  to  either  the  States 
in  which  they  were  recruited  or  to  that  under  whose  name 
they  served.  North  Carolina  has  honor  enough  in  the 
patriots  who  voluntarily  served  under  Davie,  Davidson, 
McDowell,  Graham,  and  Rutherford,  without  reference  to 
these  State  regulars  who  enlisted  for  pay  in  plunder. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  8th  of  September, 
the  American  army  moved  in  four  columns  from  its  bivouac 
in  the  following  order.  The  State  troops  of  South  Carolina 
and  Lee's  Legion  formed  the  advance  under  the  command 
of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Henderson,  whose  commission  in 
the  Continental  service  was  senior  to  that  of  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Lee.  The  militia  of  North  Carolina  under  Colonel 
Malmedy,  who  held  a  commission  under  that  State,  and  the 
militia  of  South  Carolina  under  Marion  and  Pickens,  the 
whole  under  the  command  of  Marion,  moved  next.  Then 
followed  the  Continentals  or  regulars  under  General  Sumner 
of  North  Carolina.  The  rear  was  closed  by  Washington's 
Cavalry  and  Kirk  wood's  Dela  wares  under  Colonel  Wash- 
ington. The  artillery  moved  between  the  columns.  The 
troops  were  thus  arranged  in  reference  to  the  order  of 
battle  in  which  they  were  to  be  formed  in  the  field. 

Colonel  Stuart's  movement  to  Eutaw,  upon  receiving 
intelligence  that  Greene  was  on  his  march  to  attack  him, 
had  been  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  a  convoy  of  provisions 
then  on  the  road  from  Charlestown,  rather  than  weaken 
the  army  before  this  expected  attack  by  sending  off  so 
strong  an  escort  as  would  have  been  necessary  for  securing 
its  safe  arrival.  Arrived  at  Eutaw,  Stuart  rested  there 
quietly,  believing  that  Greene  would  be  delayed  in  his 
attack  awaiting  Marion's  coming.  He  had  no  idea  that 
that  officer  had  already  returned,  and  was  himself  but 
seventeen  miles  away,  waiting  Greene's  coming  up  to  him. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  447 

So  it  was  that  when,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
8th,  two  deserters  from  the  North  Carolina  levies  came  in 
with  the  intelligence  that  Greene  was  approaching,  he 
neither  credited  their  tale  nor  made  inquiries  of  them,  but 
sent  them  to  prison.  Indeed,  so  little  attention  did  he  give 
to  the  warning,  that  he  sent  out  a  party  without  arms  with 
a  small  guard  up  the  river  for  the  purpose  of  collecting 
sweet  potatoes.  This  party,  commonly  called  "a  rooting 
party,"  consisting  of  about  100,  after  proceeding  about 
three  miles,  had  pursued  a  road  to  their  right  which  led  to 
a  plantation  on  the  Santee.^  In  the  meanwhile  Stuart 
received  information  by  Major  Coffin,  whom  he  had  pre- 
viously detached  with  140  infantry  and  50  cavalry,  to  gain 
intelligence  of  the  enemy,  that  they  had  appeared  in  force 
in  his  front,  then  about  four  miles  from  his  camp.^  The 
American  advance  had  already  passed  the  road  pursued  by 
the  rooting  party  when  they  were  encountered  by  Coffin, 
who  immediately  charged  with  a  confidence  which  betrayed 
his  ignorance  of  its  strength  and  of  the  near  approach  of 
the  main  army.  It  required  little  effort  to  meet  and  repulse 
the  British  cavalry,  but  the  probability  that  their  main 
army  was  near  at  hand  to  support  the  detachment,  forbade 
a  protracted  pursuit.  The  firing  at  this  point  drew  the 
rooting  party  out  of  the  woods,  and  the  whole  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Americans,  A  few  straggling  horsemen  of 
Coffin's  that  escaped  apprised  the  British  commander  of 
the  enemy's  approach,  and  infused  a  panic  into  all  with 
whom  they  communicated.^ 

In  the  meantime  Colonel  Stuart  had  pushed  forward  a 


1  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  378,  says  400  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene, 
vol.  II,  222,  says  100  ;  Otho  H.  Williams's  account  of  the  battle,  Gibbes's 
Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  144,  says  100. 

2  Stuart's  Report,  Appendix  to  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  509. 

3  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  378. 


448  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

detachment  of  infantry  to  a  mile's  distance  from  the  Eutaws, 
with  orders  to  engage  and  detain  the  American  troops 
while  he  formed  his  men  and  prepared  for  battle.  But 
Greene,  persuaded  by  the  audacity  of  Coffin  that  the  enemy 
was  at  hand,  and  wishing  to  have  time  to  form  his  lines 
with  coolness,  halted  his  columns,  and  then,  after  distribut- 
ing the  contents  of  his  rum  casks,  proceeded  with  the  for- 
mation of  his  order  of  battle. 

The  first  line  was  formed  of  the  State  volunteers,  usually 
spoken  of  as  militia,  the  South  Carolinians  in  equal 
divisions  on  the  right  and  left,  and  the  North  Carolinians 
in  the  centre.  General  Marion  commanded  the  right, 
General  Pickens  the  left,  and  Colonel  Malmedy  the  centre. 
Colonel  Henderson  with  the  State  troops  covered  the  left 
of  this  line,  and  Colonel  Lee  with  his  Legion  the  right. 

The  Continentals  composed  the  second  line.  The  North 
Carolinians  under  General  Sumner  occupied  the  right,  and 
were  divided  into  three  battalions,  commanded  by  Colonel 
Ashe  and  Majors  Armstrong  and  Blount.  The  Mary- 
landers  under  Colonel  Williams  were  on  the  left,  divided 
into  two  battalions,  commanded  by  Colonel  Howard  and 
Major  Hardman.  The  Virginians  were  in  the  centre, 
under  Colonel  Campbell,  divided  into  two  battalions,  com- 
manded by  Major  Sneed  and  Captain  Edmunds.  Two 
three-pounders  under  Captain  Gaines  moved  in  the  road 
with  the  first  line  equally  distant  to  the  right  and  left. 
Two  six-pounders  under  Captain  Browne  attended  the 
second  line  in  the  same  order.  Colonel  Washington  still 
moved  in  the  rear,  with  orders  to  keep  under  cover  of  the 
woods  and  hold  himself  in  reserve.^ 

In  this  order  the  troops  moved  forward.  The  country 
on  both  sides  of  the  road  being  in  woods,  the  army  could 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  223  ;  Otlio  H.  Williams's  account 
of  the  battle,  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  146. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  449 

move  but  slowly  while  preserving  their  order.  The  woods 
however  were  not  thick  nor  the  face  of  the  country  irregu- 
lar; it  undulated  gently,  presenting  no  obstacle  to  the  march 
more  than  an  occasional  derangement  in  the  alignments. 
As  the  American  line  moved  on,  it  encountered  Stuart's 
advanced  parties  and  drove  them  in. 

Colonel  Stuart  had  drawn  up  his  troops  in  but  one  line, 
across  the  Congaree  or  River  road,  on  ground  somewhat 
elevated  in  front  of  his  encampment,  which  was  not  far 
from  the  Eutaw  Springs.  On  his  right  was  Major 
Majoribanks  with  the  flank  battalion,  a  hundred  paces 
from  Eutaw  Creek,  which  in  that  direction  effectually 
covered  the  British  position.  Cruger's  corps  was  in  the 
centre,  and  the  Sixty-third  and  Sixty -fourth  on  the  left.^ 
The  British  left  was,  in  the  military  language  of  the  time, 
"in  air,"  that  is,  without  topographical  cover.  It  was 
supported  by  Major  Coffin  with  his  cavalry  and  a  detach- 
ment of  infantry,  which  were  concealed  by  a  very  thick 
hedge.  2 

The  ground  on  which  the  British  army  was  drawn  up  was 
altogether  in  wood ;  but  at  a  small  distance  in  the  rear  of  the 
line  was  a  cleared  field  extending  west,  south,  and  east  from 
the  dwelling-house,  and  bounded  north  by  the  creek  formed 
by  the  Eutaw  Springs,  which  was  bold  and  had  a  high  bank 
thickly  bordered  with  brush  and  low  wood.  From  the 
house  to  this  bank  extended  a  garden  enclosed  with  pali- 
sades. The  windows  of  the  house,  which  was  two  stories 
high  with  garret  rooms,  commanded  the  whole  circumja- 
cent fields.  The  house  was  of  brick  and  abundantly 
strong  to  resist  small  arms,  and  with  various  offices  or 
outhouses  of  wood ;  one  particularly,  a  barn  of  some  size, 
lay  to  the  southeast,  a  small  distance  from  the  principal 
building.  In  the  open  ground  to  the  south  and  west  of 
^  James's  Life  of  Marion,  134.        2  stedman's  Am.  War,  vol.  II,  378. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2  G 


450  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

the  house  was  the  British  encampment,  the  tents  of  which 
were  left  standing.^ 

The  American  approach  was  from  the  west ;  and  a  short 
distance  from  the  house  in  that  direction  the  road  forks, 
the  right  hand  leading  to  Charlestown  bj  the  way  of 
Monck's  Corner,  the  left  running  along  the  front  of  the 
house  by  the  plantation  then  of  Mr.  Patrick  Roche,  and 
therefore  called  by  the  British  officers  Roche's  woods, 
being  that  which  leads  down  the  river  and  through  the 
parishes  of  St.  John's  and  St.  Stephen's. 

As  soon  as  the  skirmishing  parties  were  cleared  away 
from  between  the  two  armies,  a  steady  and  desperate  con- 
flict ensued.  The  Americans  attacked  with  impetuosity. 
The  conflict  between  the  artillery  of  the  opposing  armies 
was  bloody  and  obstinate  in  the  extreme.  Both  of  the 
American  pieces  in  the  first  line  were  dismounted  and 
disabled.  One  of  the  enemy's,  a  four-pounder,  shared  the 
same  fate.  The  militia  of  North  and  South  Carolina 
attacked  with  alacrity  the  British  regulars  in  their  front. 
It  was  with  equal  astonishment,  we  are  told,  that  both  the 
second  lines,  i.e.  the  Continental  and  the  British,  contem- 
plated these  men,  steadily  and  without  faltering,  advance 
with  shouts  into  the  hottest  of  the  enemy's  fire,  unaffected 
by  the  continual  fall  of  their  comrades  around  them.  It 
appears  that  General  Greene  even  expressed  his  admira- 
tion of  the  firmness  exhibited  on  this  occasion  by  these 
men,  writing  to  Steuben,  "  such  conduct  would  have  graced 
the  veterans  of  the  great  King  of  Prussia."  ^  Why  there 
should  have  been  astonishment  because  Marion's  men,  who 
had  just  returned  from  a  series  of  signal  successes  won  by 
themselves  without  the  aid  of  Continentals,  or  Sumter's 

1  Otho  H.  Williams's  account  of  the  battle,  Gibbes's  Documentary 
Hist.  (1781-82),  147  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  221. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greeiie,  vol.  II,  225. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  451 

men,  now  led  by  Pickens,  who  had  never  yet  been  in 
defeat,  behaved  like  veterans,  it  is  difficult  to  understand. 
There  was  no  room  for  distrust  of  such  leaders,  nor  was 
there  occasion  for  such  leaders  to  distrust  men  who  were 
fighting  now,  as  they  had  been  for  more  than  a  year,  with- 
out pay  or  reward,  and  who  had  followed  them  on  more 
battle-fields  than  fortune  had  permitted  their  Continental 
brethren-in-arms  to  enter.  For  the  South  Carolina  militia, 
as  they  were  called,  there  could  have  been  no  apprehension 
because  of  inexperience ;  but  this  was  not  the  case  with 
the  North  Carolinians.  These  had  been  just  raised,  and 
were  not  now  commanded  by  one  of  their  own  leaders,  but 
by  a  foreign  officer  whose  conduct  during  the  siege  of 
Charlestown  had  not  been  so  fortunate  as  to  win  approba- 
tion, but  who,  on  the  contrary,  had  been  allowed  to  leave 
the  garrison  because  of  the  ill  feeling  he  had  aroused  by 
abandoning  a  post.^  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that 
when  the  veterans  of  the  Sixty-third  and  Sixty-fourth  regi- 
ments of  the  British  line  rushed  with  their  bayonets  upon 
them,  this  part  of  the  militia  in  the  centre  should  at  last 
have  yielded  and  been  pushed  back,^  and  thus  compelled 
the  retreat  of  those  of  Marion  and  Pickens  on  the  flanks. 

From  the  commencement  of  the  action,  the  American 
covering  parties  on  the  right  and  left  had  been  steadily 
engaged.  The  cavalry  of  the  Legion  had  not  been  exposed 
to  the  enemy's  fire,  but  the  State  troops  under  Hender- 
son had  been  in  the  most  exposed  situation  in  the  field. 
The  American  right  with  the  additions  of  the  Legion  in- 
fantry had  extended  beyond  the  British  left,  while  the 
American  left  fell  far  short  of  the  British  right ;  the  con- 
sequence of  which  was  that  the  State  troops  were  exposed 

1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevoliition  (McCrady),  489. 

2  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  468;  Stedman's  Am.  War,  vol. 
II,  379. 


452  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  the  oblique  fire  of  a  large  portion  of  the  British  right, 
and  particularly  of  the  battalion  commanded  by  Major 
Majoribanks.  Their  endurance  was  most  severely  tried. 
Henderson  solicited  permission  to  charge  his  opponents, 
and  extricate  himself  from  their  galling  fire ;  but  Greene 
would  not  run  the  risk  of  exposure  of  the  artillery  and  the 
militia,  whose  flanks  would  have  been  uncovered,  had  the 
charge  been  made  and  defeated.  While  thus  impatiently 
waiting  opportunity  for  action,  Henderson  was  severely 
wounded  and  his  troops  momentarily  demoralized.  Con- 
fidence and  order  was  soon,  however,  successfully  restored 
by  Colonel  Wade  Hampton,  who  succeeded  to  the  com- 
mand, aided  by  Colonel  Polk  and  Colonel  Mydelton. 

Upon  the  retirement  of  the  militia,  after  having  ex- 
hausted their  ammunition,  the  brunt  of  the  battle  fell 
upon  the  Continentals  of  the  second  line,  and  Sumner's 
North  Carolina  brigade  on  the  right,  after  sustaining  a 
fire  superior  to  their  own,  at  length  yielded  and  fell  back. 
The  British  left,  elated  at  the  prospect,  sprang  forward  as 
to  certain  conquest,  but  their  lines  soon  became  deranged. 
Availing  himself  of  this.  General  Greene  sent  word  to 
Colonel  Williams,  who  upon  the  retirement  of  General 
Sumner  was  in  command  of  what  remained  of  the  second 
line,  to  advance  and  sweep  the  field  with  the  bayonet. 
Never,  it  is  said,  was  order  obeyed  with  more  alacrity. 
Emulous  to  wipe  away  the  recollection  of  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
the  Virginia  and  Maryland  Continentals  advanced  with 
a  spirit  expressive  of  the  impatience  with  which  they  had 
hitherto  been  passive  spectators  of  the  action.  When 
within  forty  yards  of  the  enemy  the  Virginians  delivered 
a  destructive  fire,  and  the  whole  second  line  of  Continen- 
tals advanced  to  the  charge. 

Upon  the  approach  of  the  second  line,  the  left  of  the 
British  army  fell  back   in   some   disorder.     Colonel   Lee 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  463 

immediately  took  advantage  of  this,  and  wheeled  his  infan- 
try upon  the  exposed  and  broken  flank,  the  disorder  of 
which  was  thereby  greatly  increased.  But  the  British 
centre,  the  Third,  or  Buffs,  the  Sixty-third  and  Sixty- 
fourth  regiments,  and  De  Lancey's  corps,  all  apparently 
under  the  command  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Cruger,  and 
the  Flank  Battalion  on  the  right,  under  the  command  of 
Major  Majoribanks,  stood  firmly  awaiting  the  onset  of  the 
Continentals,  whom  they  considerably  outnumbered.  The 
Continentals  rushed  on  with  great  gallantry,  and  were 
met  with  equal  bravery  by  the  British  regulars.  Bayonets 
are  said  to  have  clashed  and  officers  to  have  had  occasion 
to  use  their  swords.  The  disorder  of  the  British  left 
began  now  to  affect  the  centre ;  and  as  they  gave  way,  left 
the  flank  of  their  comrades  exposed,  who,  thus  disconcerted, 
were  pressed  back  by  the  fugitives.  At  that  moment  the 
Marylanders  delivered  a  most  destructive  fire,  and  the 
British  line,  all  but  the  right  under  Majoribanks,  yielded. 
Shouts  now  resounded  along  the  American  line,  and  vic- 
tory was  deemed  certain;  but  the  carnage  among  the 
Americans  had  but  commenced. 

Upon  the  breaking  of  his  line  Stuart  withdrew  from  the 
wood  to  the  open  field  in  front  of  the  house,  under  cover 
of  a  well-directed  fire  from  a  detachment  of  the  New  York 
volunteers  under  Major  Sheridan,  whom  he  had  previously 
stationed  in  the  building  to  check  the  Americans  should 
they  attempt  to  pass  it.  The  cavalry  of  Lee's  legion  had 
now  an  opportunity  of  striking  an  effective  blow  upon  the 
disordered  ranks  of  the  British  line  as  it  retreated,  but  it 
did  not  move.  This  was  accounted  for  by  the  absence  of 
Lee,  who  was  with  his  infantry,  and  not  with  the  cavalry, 
as  expected  by  Greene ;  and  also  by  the  presence  of  Major 
Coffin,  who  stood  ready  to  interfere  should  a  move  be 
made.     But  from  whatever  cause  occasioned,  an  excellent 


454  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

opportunity  of  dealing  a  telling  blow  was  missed,  and  Lee 
did  not  escape  animadversion  because  of  its  loss. 

Major  Majoribanks  was  still  standing  firmly  in  the 
thicket  on  the  right,  and  the  original  British  line  extend- 
ing considerably  beyond  the  American  left,  as  the  opposite 
wing  of  the  British  gave  way  the  two  armies  were  swung 
round  as  it  were  upon  the  British  extreme  right  as  a  pivot. 
General  Greene  saw  that  Majoribanks  must  be  dislodged 
at  every  hazard,  and  orders  were  despatched  to  Washing- 
ton, who,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  in  reserve,  to  push 
into  the  interval  between  the  British  and  the  creek  and 
turn  Majoribanks's  right.  Washington  at  once  made  the 
effort.  Without  waiting  for  Hampton,  who  was  ordered  to 
cooperate  with  him,  he  galloped  through  the  woods  and  was 
soon  in  action.  Colonel  Hampton  on  receiving  his  orders 
also  hastened  to  the  scene  of  action,  and  making  for  the 
creek,  endeavored  to  come  in  on  Washington's  left ;  before 
he  got  up  Washington  attempted  a  charge  on  Majoribanks's 
front,  but  it  was  impossible  for  his  cavalry  to  penetrate 
the  thicket.  Failing  in  this,  Washington  turned  to  the 
left,  endeavoring  with  Hampton  to  get  into  the  interval 
between  Majoribanks  and  the  creek  ;  but  in  doing  so  he 
exposed  his  flank  to  the  enemy,  who  by  a  well-directed 
and  deadly  fire  brought  to  the  ground  Washington  him- 
self, many  of  the  men  and  horses,  and  all  of  his  officers 
except  two.  The  survivors  of  Washington's  command 
rallied  under  Lieutenant  Gordon  and  Cornet  Simons,  and 
united  themselves  to  Hampton,  who  again  led  them  to  the 
charge  upon  Majoribanks,  but  without  success.  Kirk- 
wood  had,  however,  come  up  with  his  veteran  Delawares 
and  rushed  furiously  to  avenge  their  comrades  of  the 
cavalry,  with  whom  they  had  so  often  served.  They  were 
more  successful  and  pushed  Majoribanks  somewhat  back, 
but  he  still  clung  to  the  thickets,  while  conforming  his 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  465 

line  to  that  of  the  left,  which  was  still  swinging  back  upon 
the  settlement.  Having  at  last  to  let  go  the  thickets,  he 
formed  a  new  line  with  his  rear  to  the  creek,  and  his  left 
on  the  palisaded  garden. 

The  retreat  of  the  British  army  lay  directly  through 
their  encampment,  where  the  tents  were  all  standing,  and 
unfortunately  presented  many  objects  of  temptation  to  the 
thirsty,  naked,  and  fatigued.  Nor  was  the  concealment 
afforded  by  the  tents  at  this  time  a  trivial  consideration,  for 
the  fire  of  Sheridan's  New  Yorkers  from  the  windows  was 
galling  and  destructive,  and  no  cover  from  it  was  any- 
where to  be  found  except  among  the  tents  or  behind  a 
building  to  the  left  of  the  front  of  the  house.  The  old 
story  was  repeated.  The  American  line  was  soon  in 
irretrievable  confusion.  When  their  officers  proceeded 
beyond  the  encampment,  they  found  themselves  nearly 
abandoned  by  their  soldiers,  and  the  sole  marks  for  the 
party  who  now  poured  their  fire  from  the  windows  of 
the  house.  The  infantry  of  the  Legion  appears  to  have 
been  the  only  body  which  was  not  thus  disorganized. 
Being  far  on  the  American  right,  it  had  directed  its 
movements  with  a  view  to  secure  the  advantage  of  being 
covered  by  the  barn.  The  narrow  escape  of  the  British 
army  is  sufficiently  attested  by  the  fact  that  the  corps  was 
very  near  entering  the  house  pellmell  with  the  fugitives. 
It  was  only  by  closing  the  door  in  the  face  of  some  of 
their  own  officers  and  men  that  it  was  prevented ;  and  in 
retiring  from  the  fire  of  the  house,  the  prisoners  taken  at 
the  door  were  interposed  as  a  shield  to  the  lives  of  their 
captors.^ 

The  demoralization  of  the  American  army  was  now  com- 
plete. The  fire  from  the  house  showered  down  destruction 
upon  the  American  officers ;  and  the  men,  unconscious  or 
,  I  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  230. 


456  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

unmindful  of  consequences,  perhaps  thinking  the  victory 
secure,  and  bent  on  the  immediate  fruition  of  its  advan- 
tages, dispersed  among  the  tents,  feasted  upon  liquors  and 
refreshments  they  afforded,  and  became  utterly  unmanage- 
able. Majoribanks  and  Coffin,  watchful  of  every  advan- 
tage, now  made  simultaneous  movements,  the  former 
from  his  left,  and  the  latter  from  the  wood  on  the  right 
of  the  American  line.  General  Greene,  says  Johnson,  soon 
perceived  the  evil  that  threatened  him,  and  not  doubting 
but  his  infantry,  of  whose  disorderly  conduct  he  was  not 
yet  aware,  would  immediately  dispose  of  Majoribanks, 
despatched  Captain  Pendleton  with  orders  for  the  Legion 
cavalry  to  fall  upon  Coffin  and  repulse  him.  What  took 
place  is  thus  reported  by  that  officer :  "  When  Coffin's 
cavalry  came  out  General  Greene  sent  me  to  Colonel  Lee 
with  orders  to  attack  him.  When  I  went  to  the  corps 
Lee  was  not  there,  and  the  order  was  delivered  to  Major 
Egleston,  the  next  in  command,  who  made  the  attack  with- 
out success. 

"  The  truth  is,"  he  adds,  "  Colonel  Lee  was  very  little, 
if  at  all,  with  his  own  corps  after  the  enemy  fled.  He 
took  some  dragoons  with  him  as  I  was  informed  and  rode 
about  the  field,  giving  orders  and  directions  in  a  manner 
the  General  did  not  approve  of.  General  Greene  was 
apparently  disappointed  when  I  informed  him  Colonel  Lee 
was  not  with  his  cavalry  and  that  I  had  delivered  the 
order  to  Major  Egleston."  ^ 

General  Greene  now  realized  the  extent  of  his  misfor- 
tune, and  ordered  a  retreat.  But  Coffin,  who  had  repulsed 
the  Legion  cavalry,  was  not  disposed  to  allow  the  Ameri- 
cans to  retire  without  inflicting  upon  them  a  final  blow. 
He  hastened  on  to  charge  their  rear,  now  dispersed  among 
their  tents.  Hampton  fortunately  was  on  hand.  He 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  230. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  467 

had  been  ordered  up  the  road  to  cover  the  retreat,  and  now, 
coming  up,  charged  upon  Coffin  with  vigor.  Coffin  met 
him  with  firmness,  and  a  sharp  conflict,  hand-to-hand,  was 
for  a  while  maintained.  But  Coffin  was  obliged  to  retire, 
and  in  the  ardor  of  pursuit  the  American  cavalry  ap- 
proached so  near  Majoribanks  and  the  picketed  garden 
as  to  receive  from  them  a  fatally  destructive  fire.  Colonel 
Hampton,  nevertheless,  rallied  his  men,  and  resumed  his 
station  in  the  border  of  the  wood.  But  before  this  could 
be  effected,  Majoribanks  had  taken  advantage  of  the  open- 
ing made  by  his  fire,  to  perform  another  gallant  action, 
which  was  decisive  of  the  fortune  of  the  day. 

The  artillery  of  the  second  line  had  followed  on  as 
rapidly  as  it  could  upon  the  pursuit,  and,  together  with  two 
six-pounders  abandoned  by  the  enemy  in  their  flight,  had 
been  brought  up  to  batter  the  house.  Unfortunately,  in 
the  ardor  to  do  this,  the  pieces  had  been  run  into  the  open 
field  so  near  as  to  be  commanded  by  the  fire  from  the  house, 
and  consequently  drew  all  the  fire  from  the  windows  upon 
the  artillerists  ;  it  killed  or  disabled  nearly  all  of  them. 
Majoribanks,  as  soon  as  disembarrassed  of  Hampton's 
cavalry,  sallied  into  the  field,  seized  the  pieces,  and  hur- 
ried them  under  cover  of  the  house.  Then,  being  reen- 
forced  by  parties  from  the  garden  and  the  house,  he 
charged  among  the  Americans,  now  dispersed  among  the 
tents,  and  drove  them  before  him.  The  American  army, 
however,  soon  rallied  after  reaching  the  cover  of  the  wood, 
and  their  enemy  was  too  much  crippled  to  venture  beyond 
the  cover  of  the  house. 

General  Greene  halted  on  the  ground  only  long  enough 
to  collect  his  wounded,  all  of  whom  except  those  who  had 
fallen  under  cover  of  the  fire  from  the  house  he  brought 
off ;  and  having  made  arrangements  for  burying  the  dead, 
and  leaving  a  strong  picket  under  Colonel  Hampton  in  the 


458  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

field,  he  withdrew  his  army  to  Burdell's,  seven  miles  distant. 
At  no  nearer  point  could  water  be  found  adequate  to  the 
comforts  of  the  army.^ 

Both  parties  claimed  on  this  occasion  complete  victory. 
But  it  is  noticeable  that  the  British  commander  begins 
his  despatch  with  the  announcement  of  victory,  while  the 
American  reserves  his  claim  to  the  conclusion  of  his  report, 
rather  as  a  deduction  from  the  facts  stated  than  as  positive 
assertion  of  his  own. 

Colonel  Stuart  hastens,  on  the  9th,  the  day  after  the 
battle,  to  report  to  the  Earl  Cornwallis :  — 

'^  With  particular  satisfaction  I  have  the  honor  to  inform 
your  lordship  that  on  the  8th  instant  I  was  attacked  by 
the  rebel  General  Greene  with  all  the  force  he  could  col- 
lect in  this  province  and  North  Carolina,  and  after  an 
obstinate  engagement  I  totally  defeated  him  and  took  two 
six-pounders."  ^ 

General  Greene  was  in  no  such  haste  to  communicate  the 
result  of  the  action.  He  deferred  his  report  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  Congress,  to  the  11th,  when,  after  a  detail  of  his 
movements  and  of  the  incidents  of  the  battle,  he  closes 
with  the  remark  :  — 

"  I  think  I  owe  the  victory  which  I  have  gained  to  the 
brisk  use  the  Virginians  and  Marylanders  and  one  party 
of  the  infantry  made  of  the  bayonet.  I  cannot  forbear 
praising  the  conduct  and  courage  of  all  my  troops."  ^ 

The  first  and  immediate  results  of  the  battle  were  clearly 
with  the  British,  and  Stuart's  report  doubtless  expressed 
the  opinion  at  the  time,  of  all  concerned,  whether  on  the 
one  side  or  the  other.  General  Greene  had  broken  up  his 
camp,  into  which  he  had  gone  for  the  summer,  for  a  sud- 

1  Jolinson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  231. 

2  Appendix  to  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  508. 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  459 

den  and  specific  purpose,  and  that  was  to  strike  so  crush- 
ing a  blow  upon  the  British  power  in  South  Carolina  as 
would  leave  him  free  to  meet  and  cut  off  Lord  Cornwallis 
should  he  attempt  to  escape  from  Washington  and  the 
French  troops  in  Virginia.  For  this  purpose  he  had  at 
last  succeeded  in  gathering  up  all  his  forces,  Continentals, 
State  troops,  militia,  and  volunteers,  into  one  grand  army, 
and  for  once  arraying  them  all  in  line  of  battle.  It  was  an 
imposing  array  for  the  times.  Sumter  was  absent,  suffering 
from  his  wound;  and  Huger,  who  had  fought  in  every 
pitched  battle  in  which  the  Continentals  were  engaged 
in  the  three  Southern  States  from  Fort  Moultrie  up  to  this 
time,  was  also  away.  But  with  these  two  exceptions, 
Greene  had  here  collected  around  him  all  the  great  leaders 
of  the  war  in  the  South.  Huger's  place  was  ably  filled  by 
that  excellent  officer.  Colonel  Otho  H.  Williams,  of  Mary- 
land, than  whom  no  better  soldier  or  braver  man  served  in 
the  war.  There  was  Washington,  the  sturdy  and  dashing 
cavalryman,  and  Lee,  brilliant  and  ambitious.  Then 
there  was  Marion,  fresh  from  one  of  his  most  effective 
partisan  strikes,  and  Pickens,  the  hero  of  Cowpens,  and 
Wade  Hampton,  already  rivalling  those  who  had  been 
earlier  in  the  field,  and  who,  on  this  occasion,  was  to  per- 
form the  most  signal  service.  With  these  he  marched, 
as  he  persuaded  himself,  to  certain  victory.  Against  him 
was  an  untried  officer  who  had  yet  to  fight  his  first  battle. 
But  the  battle  was  fought,  and  at  night  Greene  found  him- 
self collecting  his  shattered  forces  seven  miles  from  the 
battle-field,  with  Hampton  only  standing  picket  between 
him  and  the  enemy,  who  remained  upon  the  ground  the 
night  after  the  action  and  the  following  day,  with  leisure 
to  despatch  from  the  battle-field  itself  a  report  of  the  vic- 
tory he  had  won. 

Nevertheless,  though  General  Greene  had  failed  appar- 


460  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH  CAEOLINA 

ently  of  his  purpose,  the  ultimate  advantages  were  with 
the  Americans,  for  while  the  losses  were  great  on  both 
sides,  the  waning  power  of  the  British  could  less  afford  the 
great  loss  of  this  bloody  and  hard-fought  action. 

Colonel  Stuart's  return  of  killed  and  wounded  was  3 
commissioned  officers,  6  sergeants,  1  drummer,  75  rank  and 
file,  killed;  total,  85  killed;  16  commissioned  officers,  20 
sergeants,  2  drummers,  313  rank  and  file,  wounded ;  total, 
351  wounded ;  15  sergeants,  8  drummers,  224  rank  and  file, 
missing ;  total,  247  missing.     In  all  683.^ 

General  Greene  reported  his  loss:  Continental  Troops: 
killed,  1  lieutenant-colonel,  6  captains,  5  subalterns,  4  ser- 
geants, 98  rank  and  file ;  total,  114  killed.  Wounded,  2 
lieutenant-colonels,  7  captains,  20  lieutenants,  24  sergeants, 
209  rank  and  file,  total,  262  wounded.  Total,  376.  State 
Troops  and  Militia :  killed,  1  major,  4  subalterns,  4  ser- 
geants, 16  soldiers;  total,  25  killed.  Wounded,  3  lieu- 
tenant-colonels, 6  captains,  5  subalterns,  3  sergeants,  91 
soldiers;  total,  108  wounded  and  8  missing;  total,  141. 
The  whole  loss  of  Greene's  army  was  thus  517.^ 

1  Appendix  to  Tarleton's  Campaigns,  513. 

2  Ibid.,  517,  518.  Appended  to  the  above  tabular  statement  is  another 
by  Charles  Thomson,  secretary  of  the  Continental  Congress,  giving  the 
total  of  the  killed  and  wounded  and  missing  at  554. 

Names  of  the  Continental  and  militia  commissioned  officers  killed  and 
wounded  in  the  action  of  Eutaw,  the  8th  of  September,  1781,  as  given  in 
Gibbes's  Documentai-y  Hist.  (1781-82),  157,  158  :  — 

"  Maryland  Brigade,  Captains  Dobson  and  Edgerly,  Lieutenants  Dewall 
and  Gould  killed  ;  Lieut.  Col.  Howard,  Captain  Gibson,  Capt.  Lieut. 
Hugon,  Lieutenants  Ewing,  Woolford,  and  Lynn,  Ensign  Moore  wounded. 

*'  Virginia  Brigade,  Lieut.  Col.  Campbell,  Capt.  Oldham,  Lieut.  Wilson 
killed  ;  Captains  Edmonds  and  Morgan,  Lieutenants  Miller  and  Jowitt 
wounded. 

"  North  Carolina  Brigade,  Captains  Goodman,  Goodwin,  and  Potter- 
field,  Lieut.  Dillon,  killed  ;  Capt.  Hadley,  Lieutenants  Dixon,  Andrews, 
and  Dudley,  Ensigns  Lamb  and  Moore  wounded. 

"  South  Carolina  Line,  Lieut.  Col.  Henderson  wounded.     Cavahy, 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  461 

Colonel  Stuart  admits  a  loss  of  683,  including  only  247 
missing.  But  to  these,  however,  it  is  fair  to  add  70  of  his 
wounded  who  fell  into  the  Americans'  hands  when  he  fell 
back  on  the  10th.  It  is  also  fair  to  add,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  while  the  official  report  above  returns  the  missing  of 
the  Americans  at  8  militia,  the  British  claimed  to  have 
taken  60,  and  the  Americans  admitted  a  loss  of  40.^ 

The  loss  in  officers  on  both  sides  was  very  severe. 
Colonel  Stuart  was  himself  wounded,  so  that  he  was  soon 
compelled  to  retire  from  his  field,  and  Major  Majoribanks 
fatally.  He  died  on  the  march  to  Charlestown,  and  his 
tomb  is  still  seen  on  the  roadside  where  he  expired  and 
was  buried!^ 


Lieut.  Col.  Washington  wounded  and  prisoner  of  war;  Capt.  "Watts, 
Lieutenants  Gordon,  Simons,  King,  and  Steward,  Mr.  Carlisle,  volunteer, 
killed.  Artillery,  Capt.  Lieut.  Finn  wounded,  Lieut.  Carson  wounded 
mortally,  Lieut.  Drew  wounded,  Lieut.  McGurrie  wounded  and  prisoner 
of  war.  Legion  Infantry,  Lieut.  Manning  wounded.  Mr.  Carrington, 
volunteer,  wounded.     O.  H.  Williams,  D.  A.  G. 

"  South  Carolina  State  Officers,  Major  Rutherford,  Lieut.  Polk, 
Adjutant  Lush  killed,  Lieut.  Col.  Henderson  commanding  Brigade, 
Lieut.  Col.  Middleton,  Captains  Moore,  Giles,  N.  Martin,  and  Cowan, 
Lieutenants  Erskine,  Culpeper,  Hammond,  and  Spragins  wounded. 

"  South  Carolina  Militia,  Brig.  Gen.  Pickins,  Lieut.  Col.  Horry,  Cap- 
tains Gee,  Pegee,  Lieutenant  Boon  wounded.  Lieutenants  Holmes  and 
Simons  killed." 

In  the  above  list  Washington's  cavalry  and  Lee's  Legion  infantry  are 
incorrectly  credited  to  South  Carolina.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Henderson, 
wounded,  is  twice  mentioned,  and  so  is  Lieutenant  Simons  killed.  The 
name  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Middleton  should  be  spelled  Mydelton. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  Vol.  II,  232. 

'^  Major  Majoribanks  (pronounced  Marshbanks),  by  whom,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Sheridan,  the  British  army  was  saved,  lies  buried  on  the  Santee 
Canal  Road,  about  half  a  mile  below  the  chapel  (Biggin  Chapel  ?)  ;  he 
was  a  brave  and  generous  enemy,  and  on  an  old  headboard  the  following 
inscription  is  still  (1821)  to  be  seen  :  "John  Majoribanks  Esq.,  late  Major 
to  the  19  regt.  inf'y  and  commanding  a  flank  bat'n  of  his  Majesty's  army, 
obiit.  22  October,  178L" —James's  Life  of  Marion,  137. 


462  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

On  the  American  side  Colonel  Campbell  of  Virginia  fell 
as  he  was  leading  his  men  to  the  charge ;  and  it  is  related 
of  him  that,  drawing  fast  to  his  end,  he  inquired  how  the 
battle  went,  and  being  informed  that  the  enemy  were  routed 
and  flying,  he  exclaimed,  "  I  die  contented."  Lieutenant 
John  Simons  was  also  among  the  slain.  General  Pickens, 
Colonels  Washington,  Howard,  Henderson,  Hugh  Horry, 
and  many  others  were  also  wounded.  Sixty-one  officers 
were  killed  or  wounded,  twenty -one  of  whom  died  on  the 
field  of  battle. 

General  Greene  had  gone  into  this  battle,  as  he  had  done 
into  that  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  confident  not  only  of  victory, 
but  also  of  the  surrender  of  the  British  army  in  the  field. ^ 
Upon  what  such  an  expectation  could  have  been  based  it 
is  difficult  to  conceive.  The  armies  were,  as  at  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  very  nearly  equal,  and  the  British  all  regulars  or 
veterans.  So,  too,  as  usual,  he  was  equally  confident  that, 
had  not  something  unforeseen  happened,  he  would  have 
been  entirely  successful.  To  Washington  he  wrote,  ''  We 
obtained  a  complete  victory,  and  had  it  not  been /or  one 
of  those  incidents  to  which  military  operations  are  subject  we 
should  have  taken  the  whole  British  army."^  The  general 
was  happily  constituted.  He  was  one  of  those  who  could 
always  find  plausible  reasons  why  he  did  not  succeed,  and 
was  thereby  entirely  consoled.  At  Guilford  Court-house 
it  was  the  North  Carolina  militia.  At  Hobkirk's  Hill  it  was 
Gunby's  fault,  and  Sumter's  failing  to  join  him.  At  Ninety 
Six  it  was  Jefferson's  fault  in  withholding  the  Virginia  reen- 
f  orcements.  And  now  it  was  "  one  of  those  incidents  to  which 
military  operations  are  suhjecty  The  incident  in  this  case 
happened  to  be  the  want  of  discipline  in  his  Continentals, 
who  broke  their  ranks  to  secure  the  spoils  of  the  enemy's 
camp. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  233.  ^  Ibid.y  240. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  463 

The  heroes  of  this  battle  undoubtedly  were  Majoribanks, 
Sheridan,  and  Coffin  on  the  one  side,  and  Wade  Hampton 
on  the  other.  Majoribanks  cut  to  pieces  Washington  as 
he  was  assailing  the  last  point  of  resistance  in  the  British 
line.  Then,  turning  upon  the  disordered  Americans  among 
the  tents,  he  routed  them.  Coffin  it  was  who  repulsed  the 
Legion  cavalry,  and  delivered  the  final  blow  upon  the 
retreating  Americans.  It  was  Wade  Hampton  that  finally 
pushed  Majoribanks  from  his  position  in  the  thicket  on  the 
left;  and  it  was  he  who  alone  interposed  between  Coffin 
and  the  retreating  Americans  as  Majoribanks  drove  them 
from  the  field. 

It  admits  of  no  doubt,  said  the  Annual  Register^  in  its 
account  of  the  battle,  that  the  conflict  was  exceedingly 
severe,  and  abounded  with  instances  of  the  highest  gal- 
lantry on  both  sides.  The  Americans  were  now  inured  to 
arms  and  danger  ;  and  the  provincial  militia,  who  alone  led 
on  the  attack  in  the  first  line,  not  only  fought  with  all 
spirit,  but  with  all   the  perseverance   of  old,  well-tried 

soldiers.^ 

1  Annual  Begister,  1782,  vol.  XXV,  191. 


CHAPTER  XX 

1781 

It  was  Greene's  intention  to  have  renewed  the  action 
the  next  day ;  but  Stuart,  calling  up  McArthur  from  Fair 
Lawn,  and  leaving  seventy  of  his  wounded  to  the  enemy, 
many  of  his  dead  unburied,  breaking  the  stocks  of  one 
thousand  stand  of  arms  and  casting  them  into  the  spring, 
and  destroying  his  stores,  retreated  towards  Fair  Lawn. 
Upon  this  Greene  turned  back  from  Burdell's  plantation, 
and  followed  him  for  some  distance ;  but  as  Stuart  contin- 
ued his  retreat,  Greene  halted  and  detached  Marion  and 
Lee  by  a  circuitous  route  to  interpose  between  the  two 
British  forces.  This,  however,  failed.  So  hurried  was 
Stuart's  retreat  for  fifteen  miles  that  he  brought  his  first 
division  within  a  few  miles  of  McArthur,  coming  to  his 
aid  before  Marion  and  Lee  reached  Ferguson's  Swamp, 
their  point  of  destination.  The  British  officers  effected  a 
junction,  and  Stuart  halted  at  Wantoot,  Mr.  Daniel  Rav- 
enel's  plantation,  twenty  miles  from  Eutaw.^  On  the 
day  of  the  battle  Greene  had  received  intelligence  by  ex- 
press from  Governor  Burke  of  North  Carolina,  which  for- 
bade him  continuing  longer  south  of  the  San  tee  than  was 
necessary  to  ascertain  whether  his  adversary  would  wait 
another  attack ;  then,  recrossing  the  Santee  at  Nelson's 
Ferry  on  the  12th,  on  the  15th  he  resumed  his  former 

10.  H.  Williams's  account,  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  156  ; 
Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  232  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion,  136. 

464 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION      -  465 

position  on  the  benign  Hills  of  San  tee,  as  Lee  called  them, 
from  which  he  indulged  his  literary  propensity  in  com- 
municating with  his  friends  at  the  North  upon  the  battle, 
for  which,  with  some  reason,  he  now  claimed  the  honor  of 
victory.^  But,  as  usual,  something  had  happened  to  mar 
his  fortune.  Writing  to  Lafayette  amongst  numerous 
others,  he  says, "  We  obtained  a  complete  victory,  and  had 
it  not  been  for  one  of  those  incidents  to  which  military  opera- 
tions are  subject  we  should  have  taken  the  whole  British 
army."  We  are  left,  says  Johnson,  his  biographer,  to  con- 
jecture what  this  ^''incident'*''  was  to  which  he  so  often 
alludes,  as  the  cause  of  his  failure  to  capture  the  whole 
army .2  The  intelligence  which  hastened  his  return  to  the 
north  of  the  San  tee  was  the  renewal  of  the  report  that 
Lord  Cornwallis  was  meditating  a  return  to  South  Caro- 
lina. This  intelligence  was  apparently  confirmed  by  the 
movement  of  Colonel  Stuart,  who,  collecting  all  the  reen- 
forcements  he  could  gather  from  below,  strengthening  his 
cavalry  to  the  number  of  two  hundred,  had  once  more  ad- 
vanced to  the  Eutaws,  and  was  pushing  the  American 
detachments  both  up  and  down  the  Santee.  Hampton 
above,  and  Marion  below,  were  both  obliged  to  return 
across  the  river. ^ 

Governor  Burke  of  North  Carolina  was  exerting  him- 
self to  the  utmost  to  meet  the  anticipated  movement  of 
Lord  Cornwallis,  when  a  most  extraordinary  event  oc- 
curred. A  band  of  Loyalists,  not  exceeding  three  hundred, 
headed  by  the  celebrated  partisan  Hector  McNeill,  issuing 
from  Wilmington,  penetrated  the  country  as  high  up  as 
Hillsboro,  and,  seizing  the  Governor  and  some  of  his 
council  and  every  Continental  and  militia  officer  in  the 
place,  made  good  their  retreat  to  Wilmington,  and  from 
thence  the  Governor  was  immediately  shipped  to  Charles- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  239.      ^  /^^(^.^  240,  241.     »  Ihid.,  243. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2  H 


466  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

town  as  a  State  prisoner.  Lord  Rawdon  on  his  voyage  to 
England  had  just  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  allies  at  sea 
about  a  fortnight  before,  and  as  his  lordship  had  been  men- 
tioned as  a  fit  subject  for  retaliation  for  the  execution  of 
Hayne,  and  as  the  St.  Augustine  prisoners  had  been  re- 
leased, it  became  necessary,  it  was  said,  to  procure  others.^ 
The  capture  of  Governor  Burke  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
British  a  hostage  of  sufficient  importance  to  insure  the 
life  of  Lord  Rawdon. 

The  success  of  this  adventure  had  the  effect,  not  only  of 
producing  a  great  excitement  among  the  Loyalists  of  the 
State  generally,  but  especially  in  arousing  into  activity 
those  on  the  Pee  Dee,  with  whom,  through  Major  Gainey, 
Marion  and  Horry  had  entered  into  treaty.  These  began 
to  assemble  again  and  to  renew  their  ravages,  and  to 
harass  the  Whigs  in  every  quarter.  To  quell  this  upris- 
ing. General  Greene  despatched  General  Sumner  as  soon 
as  he  received  the  intelligence  of  the  Governor's  capture, 
with  instructions  to  promote  and  carry  on  the  measures 
undertaken  by  that  active  governor,  and  to  counteract 
the  evil  consequences  of  his  capture. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  condition  of  Colonel  Stuart's 
wound  caused  him  to  leave  the  field  and  to  turn  over  his 
command  of  the  army  to  Major  Doyle.  Under  this  officer 
the  British  army  returned  to  the  Santee,  and  took  post 
at  Fludd's  plantation,  three  miles  from  Nelson's  Ferry. 
According  to  all  the  intelligence  of  the  day,  after  all  the 
reductions  which  it  had  sustained  from  battle  and  disease, 
the  British  army  under  Doyle  consisted  of  two  thousand 
men  besides  a  detachment  at  hand  of  three  hundred  under 
Major  Mc  Arthur  at  Fair  Lawn.  The  Loyalists  also  who 
had  retired  with  Lord  Rawdon  to  Charlestown  were  re- 
quired with  little  discrimination  to  engage  in  active  ser- 
1  Johnson's  Lift  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  244. 


IN  THE  llEVOLUTION  467 

vice.  Many  of  the  lower  and  poorer  order  of  these  joined 
the  Royal  regiments ;  the  more  adventurous  of  them 
furnished  very  efficient  bands  of  mounted  infantry,  which 
were  sent  out  to  harry  and  harass  the  Whigs.  It  was 
from  this  class  that  Major  William  Cuningham,  Colonel 
Hezekiah  Williams,  and  other  partisan  leaders  in  the 
Royal  cause  had  raised  their  corps,  with  which,  following 
the  examples  of  Sumter  and  Marion,  they  penetrated  be- 
hind the  American  lines ;  but  unlike  Sumter  and  Marion, 
who  conducted  their  warfare  upon  the  most  civilized  rules, 
and  with  all  humanity  permissible  in  warfare,  the  Tory 
leaders  not  only  carried  fire  and  sword  into  the  back  coun- 
try, but,  not  content  with  their  own  atrocities,  called  in 
the  Indians  to  inflict  their  barbarities  upon  their  unfortu- 
nate countrymen. 

The  history  of  the  notorious  William  Cuningham,  whose 
cruelties  have  given  him  a  name  in  the  annals  of  his  state 
as  that  of  "  Bloody  Bill  Cuningham,"  is  interesting  and 
instructive  as  illustrating  the  dreadful  condition  of  affairs 
at  this  time,  and  their  effect  upon  characters  which  other- 
wise might  have  developed  peaceable  citizens  with  no 
unkindly  disposition. 

William  Cuningham  was  one  of  the  family  of  the  Cun- 
inghams  who  had  removed  from  Virginia  to  the  Ninety 
Six  District  in  this  province.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
struggle  his  political  opinions  leaned  more  to  the  Whig 
side  than  those  of  the  rest  of  his  family.  He  is  repre- 
sented as  being  of  lively,  jovial  disposition,  open-hearted 
and  generous,  priding  himself  upon  keeping  his  word,  but 
of  a  quick  and  fiery  temper.  He  was  a  remarkable  horse- 
man, with  a  passion  for  fine  horses,  fine  weapons,  and  fine 
clothing.  These  qualities  rendered  him  a  favorite  with  the 
young  men  of  his  neighborhood.  On  this  account,  though 
but  nineteen  years  of  age  in  1775,  he  was  applied  to  by 


468  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

John  Caldwell  to  assist  in  raising  a  company  for  Colonel 
Thomson's  regiment  of  rangers  embodied  by  the  Provincial 
Congress.  Cuningham  afterwards  insisted  that  the  con- 
ditions upon  which  he  had  agreed  to  enlist  were  that  he 
should  be  made  first  lieutenant  and  should  have  a  right 
to  retire  from  the  company  in  case  they  should  be  sent  to 
the  lower  country  or  ordered  on  any  other  service  than 
that  specified  by  Congress.  However  this  may  have  been, 
in  this  company  he  went  upon  the  expedition  under  Major 
Mayson  and  was  present  at  the  taking  of  Fort  Charlotte 
on  the  12th  of  July  in  that  year.  When  ordered  to 
Charlestown  Cuningham  claimed  that  he  had  consented 
to  go  only  on  the  condition  that  he  should  be  permitted  to 
resign  as  soon  as  they  reached  their  destination.  The 
company  encamped  near  the  town  for  about  a  week,  and 
was  then  ordered  to  one  of  the  islands.  Cuningham  im- 
mediately tendered  his  resignation,  which  Caldwell  refused 
to  accept.  Upon  this  Cuningham,  insisting  upon  the 
agreement,  swore  that  if  he  were  taken  over  to  the  Island 
it  should  only  be  as  a  corpse.  One-half  of  the  company 
who  had  joined  through  Cuningham's  influence  exhibited 
a  spirit  of  insubordination,  and  it  is  claimed  that,  in  order 
to  prevent  a  mutiny,  he  again  consented  to  go  on  the  re- 
newed condition  that  his  resignation  should  be  accepted 
so  soon  as  they  reached  the  island.  No  sooner  had  they 
landed,  however,  it  is  said,  than  Caldwell,  in  order  to 
restore  subordination,  had  Cuningham  arrested,  put  in 
irons,  and  tried  by  a  court-martial  on  a  charge  of  mutiny. 
Cuningham  was,  however,  not  only  acquitted  by  the  court, 
but  freed  from  his  engagement  on  the  ground  of  the  con- 
ditional agreement.  Caldwell  thus  became  an  object  of 
hatred  to  a  set  of  men  to  whom  the  distracted  state  of  the 
country  afterwards  afforded  ample  opportunity  of  satisfy- 
ing their  resentments  and  avenging  their  wrongs.      Cun- 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  469 

ingham  himself,  it  is  said,  was  satisfied  with  treating 
them  with  personal  indignity,  but  others,  as  will  soon 
appear,  were  not  content  with  so  bloodless  a  retaliation. 
Having  returned  to  the  upper  country,  Cuningham  still 
adhered  to  the  Whigs,  and  was  with  General  Williamson 
in  his  campaign  against  the  Cherokees  in  the  autumn  of 
1776.  But  after  this  expedition  he  declared  that,  having 
seen  reason  to  change  his  opinions,  he  was  determined  to 
continue  no  longer  in  the  service  of  the  Whigs. 

From  this  time  a  bitter  neighborhood  strife  arose,  in  which 
on  the  Whigs'  side  one  Captain  William  Ritchie,  who  had 
been  with  Cuningham  in  Caldwell's  company,  was  the 
leader,  who  it  is  said  sent  Cuningham  word  that  "he 
intended  to  shoot  him  down  the  first  sight  he  got  of  him, 
and  would  follow  him  if  necessary  to  the  very  gates  of 
hell."  In  1778  Cuningham,  at  the  instance  of  his  brother 
Andrew  and  Cousin  Patrick,  went  to  Savannah.  While  there 
another  brother,  John,  who  was  lame  and  an  epileptic,  was 
murdered,  it  was  said,  by  Ritchie  and  a  party  under  cir- 
cumstances of  great  atrocity,  if  the  Tory  accounts  are  true. 
William  Cuningham,  as  the  story  goes  on,  hearing  of  the 
murder  of  his  brother,  swore  he  would  never  rest  until  he 
had  avenged  it  in  Ritchie's  heart-blood.  Not  being  able  to 
procure  a  horse,  he  set  out  immediately  on  foot,  attended 
by  a  servant,  and  walked  all  the  way  from  Savannah  to 
Ninety  Six.  On  arriving  at  home  he  was  informed  that 
his  father  had  also  been  ill-treated  by  Ritchie  and  his  party, 
whereupon  he  hastened  at  once  to  Ritchie's  house  and  found 
him  in  the  yard  with  some  of  his  followers.  On  seeing 
Cuningham,  Ritchie  clasped  his  hands  together  and 
exclaimed  to  one  of  his  companions,  "  Lord  have  mercy  on 
me,  Hughes,  for  yonder  is  Cuningham  and  T  am  a  dead  man." 
He  tried  to  escape,  but  Cuningham  shot  him  down  as  he 
was  crossing  a  fence,  and  coming  close  told  him  he  "  had 


470  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

come  all  the  way  from  Savannah  on  foot  to  kill  him,  on 
account  of  the  crimes  he  had  committed  against  his  family." 

From  this  period  till  the  end  of  the  war,  Cuningham's 
life  was  passed  in  a  series  of  wild  adventures,  so  often  end- 
ing in  such  fearful  tragedies  as  to  earn  for  him  throughout 
the  country  the  significant  cognomen  of  "  Bloody  Bill " ; 
and  in  the  story  his  famous  horse,  "  Ring-tail,"  attained 
a  celebrity  hardly  less  distinguished  than  his  owner .^  As 
an  officer  in  the  British  service  he  assumed  vigorously  to 
enforce  Cornwallis's  order  that  all  who  had  renewed  their 
allegiance  to  the  King  and  resumed  arms  against  his  Maj- 
esty, if  taken,  should  be  put  to  death  as  rebels,  and 
remorselessly  executed  all  such  as  fell  into  his  power.^ 

Early  in  August  he  set  out  from  the  garrison  at 
Charlestown  with  a  party  of  150  men  for  the  purpose  of 
inflicting  punishment  on  the  Whigs  of  Ninety  Six,  who  it 
was  alleged  had  committed  injuries  against  the  wives  and 
children  of  some  of  those  of  his  party.  Pushing  through 
the  American  lines  while  Greene  was  in  his  camp  of  repose, 
and  reaching  the  upper  country,  he  began  his  operations 
between  the  Enoree  and  the  Saluda,  in  what  is  now  Laurens 
County.  In  his  first  raid  he  killed  eight  of  the  noted 
rebels  of  the  neighborhood  and  increased  his  corps  by 
sixty  of  the  Loyal  inhabitants.^  With  his  body  thus  raised, 
he  now  set  in  relentlessly  to  harass  the  Whigs  of  the  coun- 
try, and  to  wreak  his  vengeance  upon  his  enemies. 

Soon  after  this  another  marauding  party  of  Loyalists 
made  an  incursion  into  the  neighborhood  of  Mount  Will- 
ing, in  what  is  now  Edgefield  County,  near  which  Captain 

^  Cnrwrn^s  Journal  and  Letters,  1775-81;  S^ibine^s  American  Loyalists, 
237 ;  MS.  letters,  certificates,  and  affidavits  in  possession  of  Clarence 
Cuningham,  Charleston,  S.C.  , 

2  Curwin's  supra. 

8  Curwin's,  645.     The  Boyal  Gazette,  September  12,  1781. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  471 

James  Butler  lived,  carrying  off  considerable  booty.  This 
Captain  Butler,  the  founder  of  the  distinguished  family 
of  that  name,  had  taken  an  active  part  in  the  Revolution 
from  its  commencement,  had  served  in  the  Snow  Cam- 
paign in  1775,  and  for  refusing  to  accept  the  terms  of  Sir 
Henry  Clinton's  proclamation  upon  the  fall  of  Charles- 
town  had  been  arrested,  confined  in  irons  in  Ninety  Six 
jail,  from  which  he  had  been  transferred  to  Charlestown, 
where  he  had  been  confined  in  the  provost,  and  had  just 
now  been  released  upon  the  general  exchange  of  prisoners. 
Captain  Butler  had  been  at  home  but  a  few  weeks,  when 
his  neighbors  called  upon  him  to  take  command  of  a  party 
they  were  organizing  for  the  pursuit  of  the  marauders. 
At  first  he  refused  to  go,  alleging  that  the  hardships  he 
had  already  endured  and  his  recent  return  home  ought  to 
exempt  him  from  such  an  undertaking.  But  his  son 
James,  a  youth  of  nineteen  years  of  age,  one  of  the  party, 
refusing  to  proceed  with  the  expedition  unless  his  father 
assumed  the  direction.  Captain  Butler  yielded  to  the  appeal 
and  consented  to  accompany  the  party  as  an  adviser,  the 
actual  command  being  in  Captain  Turner.  The  Tories 
were  overtaken  and  dispersed  at  Tarra's  Spring,  in  what  is 
now  Lexington  County,  and  the  horses  and  cattle  recap- 
tured. Upon  the  return  of  the  party  they  unfortunately 
stopped  at  Cloud's  Creek,  a  branch  of  the  Little  Saluda 
River  in  Edgefield,  and  encamped  there  against  the  protest 
of  Captain  Butler ;  nor  would  they  adopt  ordinary  military 
precautions,  though  by  him  urged  to  do  so.  It  was  not 
known  who  were  the  Loyalists  they  had  been  pursuing, 
but  the  next  morning  demonstrated  the  folly  of  their  con- 
duct in  neglecting  Butler's  advice.  The  Tories  proved  to 
have  been  a  part  of  Cuningham's  command,  by  the  whole 
of  which,  numbering,  it  was  said,  three  hundred  men,  the 
Whigs  were  attacked  on  the  7th  of  November.     Taken  by 


472  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

surprise,  the  little  party  of  Whigs,  about  thirty  in  number, 
took  refuge  in  an  unfinished  log  house  without  door  or 
windows.  Upon  Cuningham's  demand  for  surrender,  they 
asked  the  terms  which  they  would  be  allowed,  and  Cun- 
ingham  agreeing  to  receive  a  communication  from  them, 
a  messenger  was  sent,  to  whom  Cuningham's  first  inquiry 
was.  Who  are  of  the  party?  And  on  learning  that  young 
Butler,  who,  they  said,  had  been  engaged  in  an  affair  in 
which  one  Radcliff  was  killed,  was  among  them,  Cuning- 
ham  refused  to  give  any  terms  which  would  exempt  that 
young  man  from  his  sword.  Cuningham  was  personally 
well  acquainted  with  Captain  Butler,  having  served  with 
him  in  the  Snow  Campaign,  and  it  is  said  had  rather  a 
partiality  for  him,  and  would  have  entertained  terms  of 
capitulation  with  the  party  had  it  not  been  for  the  pres- 
ence of  the  son.  Captain  Butler  proposed  to  Cuningham 
that  if  he  would  spare  his  son  he  would  make  an  uncondi- 
tional surrender  of  himself.  The  young  man,  however, 
learning  Cuningham's  animosity  to  him,  and  believing  that 
his  father  and  himself  would  be  sacrificed  in  the  event  of 
any  surrender,  determined  to  force  the  hazard  of  a  strug- 
gle, and  exclaiming  that  he  "  would  settle  the  terms  of 
capitulation,"  fired  his  rifle,  killing  a  Tory.  This  con- 
cluded the  parley,  and  young  Butler  fell  with  a  mortal 
wound  while  kneeling  to  pick  the  flint  of  his  gun  for  a 
second  shot.  The  gallant  but  expiring  boy  called  his 
father,  who,  having  gone  on  the  expedition  as  an  adviser, 
was  unarmed,  to  his  side,  handed  him  his  rifle,  and  told 
him  there  were  yet  a  few  balls  in  his  pouch.  The  father 
took  the  gun  and  continued  firing  it  until  his  powder  and 
ball  were  exhausted.  But  the  death  of  the  young  man 
produced  a  panic  in  the  little  party  contending  against 
hopeless  odds,  and  an  unconditional  surrender  was  the 
result.      The  Whigs  were  all  ordered  to  be  put  to  the 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  473 

sword.  But  two  of  the  number  escaped.  The  rest  were 
slaughtered  as  they  stood.  Captain  Butler  caught  up  a 
pitchfork  and  defended  himself  until  his  right  hand  was 
severed  by  a  sabre  stroke.  A  detachment  of  the  Tories 
was  left  to  meet  any  burying  party  that  might  be  sent  to 
inter  the  mangled  victims,  and  especially  to  secure,  if  they 
could,  another  son  of  Captain  James  Butler,  William,  who 
was  a  captain  of  rangers  and  who  was  expected  to  hasten 
to  the  spot.  Fortunately  William  Butler  was  too  far  from 
the  scene  to  reach  it  in  time.  Women  only  performed  the 
rude  rites  of  burial  possible.  A  large  pit  was  dug,  into 
which  the  bodies  were  indiscriminately  placed;  except 
that  a  separate  grave  was  prepared  by  the  sister  of  Captain 
Butler,  in  which  the  remains  of  the  father  and  son  were 
deposited.^  In  the  biographical  notices  appended  to  Cur- 
win's  Journal  and  Letters  it  is  claimed  that  Cuningham 
was  not  actually  present  at  the  massacre,  and  that  when 
he  came  up  he  regretted  that  it  had  taken  place.^  But  The 
Royal  Grazette  heralded  the  affair  as  one  of  his  achieve- 
ments, and  all  other  authorities  have  united  in  charging 
this  as  one  of  his  atrocities. 

From  Cloud's  Creek,  Cuningham  crossed  the  Saluda 
and  proceeded  to  Hayes's  Station,  which  before  had  been 
known  as  Edge  Hill,  another  small  American  post  which 
was  in  what  is  now  Laurens  County,  three  miles  from  the 
Newbury  line.  Colonel  Haj^es  had  been  warned  of  his 
danger  the  night  before  by  Captain  Brooks,  who  sent  an 
express,  advising  him  to  disband  his  men  and  leave  the 
post  instantly,  as  Cuningham  was  in  the  country,  and  had 
killed  Turner  and  his  men.     Hayes  did  not  accredit  the 

1  MS.  Memoirs  of  Genl.  Wm.  Butler,  prepared  by  Hon.  A.  P.  Butler ; 
Johnson's  Traditions,  311 ;  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  272 ; 
The  lioyal  Gazette,  November  18,  1781. 

2  Curwin's  Journal  and  Letters,  644. 


474  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

information,  as  he  had  just  returned  from  scouting  that 
part  of  the  country  and  had  heard  nothing  of  Cuningham, 
and  did  not  follow  the  advice,  but  merely  sent  off  to 
another  station  for  assistance,  in  case  of  need. 

It  was  on  a  fine  morning  a  few  days  after  the  massacre 
at  Cloud's  Creek,  when  at  ten  o'clock  a  party,  led  on  by 
one  John  Hood,  rode  up  to  the  station  at  full  gallop,  and 
reaching  the  piazza  of  the  house,  called  out  in  a  loud 
voice  that  none  should  fire  from  within,  or  they  would  all 
be  put  to  death.  Disregarding  this  warning,  a  shot  was 
fired  and  one  of  the  Tories  killed.  Cuningham,  arriving 
shortly  afterwards,  sent  a  flag  with  a  written  message  de- 
manding instant  surrender,  and  promising  if  the  Whig 
party  surrendered  to  spare  all  lives,  but  declaring,  it  is 
claimed,  that  if  they  resisted,  and  so  caused  the  spilling 
of  his  men's  blood,  he  would  give  them  no  quarter,  but 
put  them  all  to  death.  Colonel  Hayes,  trusting  to  receive 
a  reenforcement  before  the  station  could  be  carried,  refused 
to  surrender,  and  answered  "he  would  hold  out  to  the 
last."  Hayes  and  his  party  made  a  vigorous  resistance, 
which  lasted  for  hours ;  but  Cuningham  at  last  succeeded 
in  setting  fire  to  the  house,  which  was  of  wood,  by  means 
of  ramrods  wrapped  round  with  tow  dipped  in  pitch  and 
thrown  in  a  blazing  state  on  the  roof.  Half  suffocated, 
Hayes  and  his  party  surrendered  at  discretion.  Cuning- 
ham immediately  hanged  Hayes  and  another  man,  Daniel 
Williams,  on  the  pole  of  a  fodder  stack.  Before  they  were 
dead,  the  pole  broke,  and  Cuningham,  drawing  his  sword, 
slew  the  half-strangled  men  with  his  own  hand.  This  he  jus- 
tified himself  in  doing,  because  of  alleged  cruelties  by  Hayes 
to  women  and  children,  and  of  the  killing  by  Williams  of 
a  favorite  follower  of  his,  one  Thomas  Ellison.  Being  told 
of  the  presence  of  one  Cook,  who,  it  was  charged,  had  with 
Ritchie  and  Moore  whipped  his  brother  to  death,  Cuningham 


IN  THE  KBVOLUTION  475 

ordered  him  out  from  the  rest  and  slew  him  with  his  sword. 
He  then  gave  permission  to  his  men  to  do  as  they  pleased 
with  the  rest.  And  all  who  had  rendered  themselves  ob- 
noxious in  any  way  to  the  Tories  were  slain  without  mercy. 
Each  of  his  men  singled  out  whomsoever  he  would  and 
killed  him  forthwith.  The  execution  took  place  about 
sunset.  Only  two  of  the  party  fell  in  the  action  ;  fourteen 
were  deliberately  cut  to  pieces  after  their  surrender.  Their 
names  and  rank  as  given  by  Ramsay  were  as  follows : 
Colonel  Joseph  Hayes,  Captain  Daniel  Williams,  Lieuten- 
ant Christopher  Hardy,  Lieutenant  John  Neil,  Clement 
Hancock,  Joseph  Williams,  Joseph  Irby,  Sr.,  Joseph 
Irby,  Jr.,  John  Milvin,  James  Feris,  John  Cook,  Greaf 
Irby,  Benjamin  Goodman,  Yancey  Saxon.  The  Royal 
Gazette  gives  two  names  not  mentioned  by  Ramsay.  These 
were  probably  those  of  the  killed  in  the  action,  Captains 
Owen  and  Leonard.  Cuningham  had  one  man  killed  and 
five  wounded.^ 

Colonel  Hayes  had  been  in  the  struggle  from  its  com- 
mencement, and  had  served  gallantly.  He  had  been  in 
the  battles  of  Brier  Creek  and  Stono,  in  the  campaign 
against  the  Cherokees,  at  Savannah,  and  at  Hanging  Rock, 
Musgrove's  Mills,  King's  Mountain,  Blackstock,  Hammond's 
Store,  and  Cowpens.^ 

The  movements  of  Cuningham's  party  were  rapid  and 
lasted  but  a  few  weeks,  but  their  bloody  tracks  could  long 
after  be  traced.  In  their  passage  up  the  country,  they 
intercepted  a  convoy  of  wagons  despatched  by  Pickens  to 
the  army.  Upon  being  pursued  by  the  Whigs,  under  Ham- 
mond and  Purvis,  they  separated  into  several  parties,  and 
two  of  them,  under  Cuningham  and  Williams,  made  good 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  273  ;  Curwin's  Journal  and 
Letters,  644,  645 ;   The  Boyal  Gazette,  December  8,  1781. 

2  King's  Mountain  and  its  Heroes,  468. 


476  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

their  way  through  the  woods,  and  passing  between  the  posts 
of  Orangeburgh  and  Round  O,  reached  Charlestown  in 
safety.  A  third  party  that  had  charge  of  the  prisoners, 
being  far  advanced  towards  the  mountains,  and  apprehen- 
sive of  being  cut  off  if  attempting  to  retreat,  pushed  on 
and  joined  the  Indians.^ 

Another  active  and  vigorous  Tory  leader  who  appeared 
at  this  time  was  Hezekiah  Williams,  "  Colonel,"  as  he  was 
called.  Following  Cuningham,  he  marched  from  the  forks 
of  Edisto,  raiding  and  harassing  the  Whigs  in  Ninety 
Six.  On  October  5  he  was  met  by  Major  Hugh  Middleton 
of  Colonel  Hammond's  regiment,  who  came  up  with  him 
on  Stevens's  Creek,  when,  after  a  sharp  conflict,  the  Whigs 
were  repulsed  with  a  loss  of  eight  men  killed,  seventeen 
severely  and  others  slightly  wounded.  Colonel  Ham- 
mond coming  up,  however,  with  a  considerable  reenforce- 
ment,  Williams  retired ;  but  turned  to  attack  a  small  post 
known  as  Vince's  Fort  on  the  Three  Runs,  a  branch  of  the 
Savannah.  Arriving  there  on  the  28th,  however,  he  found 
the  fort  evacuated ;  the  garrison  under  Captain  Vince  had 
retired  upon  his  approach,  and  but  few  stragglers  fell  into 
his  hands. 

Early  in  the  year  General  Greene  had  concluded  a  treaty 
with  the  Cherokees,  by  which  they  had  engaged  to  observe 
a  neutrality.  This  was  a  matter  of  great  importance,  saving 
the  frontier  settlements  of  North  and  South  Carolina  from 
their  incursions ;  and  happy  would  it  have  been  for  the 
people  had  it  been  observed,  but  whenever  the  cooperation 
of  the  Indians  could  be  of  the  least  service  to  the  British 
forces,  they  were  induced  to  break  their  engagement  of 
neutrality.  About  the  same  time  that  Cuningham's  party 
started  out  on  their  expedition,  and  it  was  believed  in 
connection  with  it,  emissaries  of  the  British  induced  the 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  301-302. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  477 

Cherokee  Indians  to  commence  hostilities.^  The  Royal 
Gazette  of  the  13th  of  October  mentions  casually,  as  an 
item  of  news,  that  about  three  weeks  before  the  Cherokees 
had  commenced  hostilities  against  the  rebel  settlements  of 
Nolachucky,  Watauga,  and  Holston. 

The  first  attack  was  made  on  Go  wen's  Fort,  in  the  upper 
part  of  what  is  now  Greenville  County .^  The  fort  stood 
on  the  waters  of  the  Pacolet,  and  had  long  been  a  place  of 
rendezvous  and  safety  for  the  Whig  families  of  that  sec- 
tion, of  both  North  and  South  Carolina.  Many  attempts 
had  been  made  by  the  Indians  and  disguised  white  men  to 
capture  this  station.  They  had  often  resorted  to  art  and 
stratagem,  to  force  and  violence,  but  as  often  failed.  The 
Royal  G-azette  of  the  24th  of  November,  1781,  announces 
that  about  three  weeks  since  a  party  of  loyal  militia  and 
Cherokee  Indians  under  the  command  of  Mr.  Tuft  attacked 
and  carried  a  rebel  fort  on  Pacolet  River,  Gowen's  Ferry. 
Thus  the  official  organ  of  the  British  authorities  assumed 
the  full  responsibility  for  a  most  horrible  massacre  which 
now  took  place  at  this  remote  post.  Who  was  the  Mr. 
Tuft  mentioned  in  the  Gazette  is  not  known,  but  the  party 
was  not  led  by  any  such  person ;  though  it  is  thus  admitted 
that  it  was  composed  of  loyal  militia.  This,  however, 
the  party  at  the  time  attempted  to  conceal.  There  came 
a  formidable  band  of  Cherokees  and  white  men  painted 
like  Indians,  led  down  the  Saluda  Mountain  by  a  ban- 
dit well  known  as  "Bloody  Bates,"  who  had  repeatedly 
filled  the  country  of  the  Pacolet,  Enoree,  and  Fair  Forest 
with  plundering  and  midnight  assassinations.     This  man 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  273. 

2  This  was  the  scene,  it  may  be  remembered,  of  a  skirmish  in  July  of 
the  year  before  (1780),  in  which  a  party  of  Georgians  had  surprised  and 
taken  a  body  of  Tories.  (Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution^  1775-80 
(McCrady),  613.) 


478  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

possessed  all  the  vices  of  his  Indian  associates  without 
a  single  one  of  their  virtues.  After  a  short  but  vigorous 
defence,  the  fort  was  surrendered,  on  the  condition  that  the 
unfortunate  captives  were  to  receive  protection  from  their 
savage  assailants.  But  no  sooner  was  Bates  in  possession 
of  the  fort  than,  recreant  to  his  word  and  insensible  to  the 
ordinary  feelings  of  humanity,  he  ordered  a  general  and 
indiscriminate  massacre  of  the  prisoners.  A  shocking 
butchery  ensued  of  men,  women,  and  children.  Neither 
age,  sex,  nor  his  own  kindred  were  spared.  A  few  made 
their  escape  and  some  of  them  in  a  horribly  mangled  con- 
dition. Mrs.  Thompson,  the  wife  of  Abner  Thompson, 
afterwards  of  Greenville  District,  was  saved  after  having 
been  scalped  by  the  Indians.  She  lived,  near  the  scene,  to 
a  good  old  age,  notwithstanding  the  terrible  disfigurement. 
Among  those  who  were  killed  were  the  Motley  family, 
all,  it  is  believed,  but  one  son,  who  lived  to  avenge  in  a 
signal  manner  the  murder  of  his  relations.  Many  years 
after  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  the  country  being  restored 
to  peace  and  county  courts  established  for  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  in  the  upper  part  of  the  State,  Bates  returned 
from  the  Cherokee  Nation,  where  he  had  taken  refuge,  and 
having  stolen  some  horses,  he  was  pursued,  arrested,  and 
securely  lodged  in  Greenville  jail.  He  was  immediately 
recognized  as  "  the  Bloody  Bates^''^  and  all  were  rejoicing 
that  he  would  meet  his  doom  on  the  gallows.  But 
there  lived  in  the  district  a  son  of  the  murdered  Motley. 
No  sooner  did  he  hear  of  Bates's  arrest  than  he  determined 
to  revenge  with  his  own  hands  the  murder  of  his  father, 
mother,  brothers,  and  sisters.  Procuring  a  pair  of  pistols, 
he  sought  the  prison  wherein  Bates  was  confined.  From  the 
jailer  he  demanded  the  keys  at  the  pistol's  mouth.  They 
were  surrendered  to  him  and  the  prison  door  opened.  Bates 
at  once  recognized  his  voice,  and  knew  that  not  only  his 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  479 

days,  but  his  minutes,  were  numbered.  Motley  seized  him 
by  the  collar  and  ordered  him  to  say  his  prayers.  In  a  few 
moments  he  sent  a  ball  through  his  head  ;  then,  taking  up 
the  body,  he  carried  it  a  few  yards  from  the  jail  and  buried 
it.  No  one  thought  of  interfering,  or  of  prosecuting  Motley 
for  the  killing  of  Bates.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  told,  he 
continued  to  live  in  the  district  for  years  afterwards,  and 
was  always  respected  and  esteemed  by  his  neighbors.^ 

What  State  in  the  then  confederacy  suffered  so  dread- 
fully as  did  South  Carolina  in  this  terrible  struggle  ?  Not 
only  did  she  endure  the  ordinary  sufferings,  fearful  as  they 
always  are,  of  a  people  living  in  a  country  the  seat  of  war, 
but  in  her  case  with  the  knowledge  and  concurrence  of  the 
British  government  —  the  government  of  the  mother  coun- 
try. The  lowest  classes  were  formed  into  banditti,  the 
leaders  of  which,  being  the  commissioners  of  his  Majesty, 
were  turned  loose  to  indulge  their  private  animosities, 
their  thirst  for  blood  and  rapine,  without  reference  to  the 
interest  of  King  or  country.  Nor  only  so;  but  the  savage 
Indians  were  supplied  with  arms  and  ammunition  and  called 
on  to  add  the  horrors  of  their  barbarities  to  the  fratricidal 
strife.  And  even  on  the  side  of  the  cause  of  freedom  it 
had  been  found  necessary  to  enlist  men  for  pay  by  plunder, 
as  Congress  could  afford  no  money  or  means  for  their  sup- 
port. 

A  curious  process  had  been  going  on.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  until  the  fall  of  Charlestown  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  State  had  been  opposed  to  the  severance  of 
the  relation  of  this  province  to  the  mother  country,  and 
that  among  those  so  opposed  were  many,  very  many,  of  the 
best  and  noblest  in  the  land ;  but  from  the  fall  of  the  city 
and  the  advance  of  the  British  army  a  sifting  process  had 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca. ;  Article  Southern  Quarterly  Beview^ 
April,  1847,  Charleston,  S.C. 


480  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

begun  and  continued,  by  which  the  better  classes  and  the 
highest  characters,  with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  were 
drawn  or  driven  to  the  American  cause,  while  on  the  other 
side  the  lowest  elements  of  society  gravitated  to  the  Royal 
standard.  Hence  the  term  "  Tory,"  which  had  first  come 
into  use  in  1775  as  the  designation  of  an  honorable  party,  be- 
came a  byword  of  reproach  and  infamy  which  it  has  scarcely 
lost  to  this  day. 


which 


1 


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t    f,t 


1  'X    t.,oJu«// 


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A 


X 


'^I^&MJl  ^'-i-N 


CHAPTER  XXI 

1781 

General  Greene's  apprehension  that  Lord  Cornwallis 
might  attempt  a  retreat  to  South  Carolina  was  finally  dis- 
pelled by  the  news  of  his  lordship's  investment  at  York- 
town  in  September  by  the  combined  American  and  French 
forces  under  Washington.  As  soon  as  the  arrival  of  the 
French  fleet  under  De  Grasse  had  assured  the  destruction 
of  Cornwallis's  army,  suggestions  simultaneously  came 
from  Philadelphia  and  South  Carolina  to  Washington  for 
the  further  employment  of  the  allies  in  the  reduction  of  the 
British  forces  in  South  Carolina.  As  early  as  September 
12,  Mr.  Edward  Rutledge,  who  had  just  been  released 
from  St.  Augustine,  wrote  to  General  Washington  urging 
a  cooperation  between  the  French  fleet  and  the  land  forces 
to  recover  Charlestown  from  the  enemy.  He  said  that  he 
had  consulted  the  Chevalier  de  la  Luzerne  on  the  subject, 
and  laid  before  him  a  plan  which  that  minister  approved, 
and  promised  that  he  would  use  his  influence  with  Count 
de  Grasse  to  obtain  naval  aid  from  him  to  effect  its  object.^ 
General  Greene  also  applied  to  Washington  to  the  same 
effect,  and  sent  on  Colonel  Lee,  hoping  that  his  pressing 
entreaties,  engaging  address,  and  military  reputation  would 
do  something  towards  promoting  the  favorite  project.^  Gen- 
eral Washington  approved  the  plan,  and  the  day  after  the 
surrender  of  Cornwallis  wrote  to  the  Count  suggesting  it 

1  Washington's  Writings,  vol.  VIII,  174. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  266. 
VOL.  IV.  —  2 1  481 


482  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  him.  Charlestown,  he  said,  the  principal  maritime  port 
of  the  British  in  the  southern  part  of  this  continent,  the 
grand  deposit  and  point  of  support  of  the  present  theatre 
of  the  war,  was  open  to  a  combined  attack,  and  might  be 
carried  with  as  much  certainty  as  the  place  just  sur- 
rendered. This  capture  would  destroy  the  last  hope  which 
induced  the  enemy  to  continue  the  war. 

"It  will  depend  upon  your  excellency,  therefore,"  he  wrote,  "to 
terminate  the  war  and  enable  the  allies  to  dictate  the  law  in  a  treaty. 
A  campaign  so  generous  and  so  fruitful  in  consequences  could  be  re- 
served only  for  the  Count  de  Grasse.  It  rarely  happens  that  such  a 
combination  of  means  as  are  in  our  hands  at  present  can  be  seasonably 
obtained  by  the  most  strenuous  human  exertions;  a  decisively  su- 
perior fleet,  the  fortune  and  talents  of  whose  commander  overawe  all 
the  naval  force  that  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  the  enemy  have 
been  able  to  collect ;  an  army  flushed  with  success  demanding  only 
to  be  conducted  to  new  attacks  ;  and  the  very  season  which  is  proper 
for  operating  against  the  point  in  question."  ^ 

The  day  after  he  so  wrote,  General  Washington  himself 
went  on  board  the  admiral's  ship  both  to  pay  his  respects 
and  offer  his  thanks  for  the  services  that  had  been  rendered 
by  the  fleet,  and  to  endeavor  to  impress  upon  Count  de 
Grasse  the  importance  of  the  plan  he  had  suggested.  He 
returned  the  same  evening,  but  having  promised  Lafayette 
the  command  of  a  detachment  against  Wilmington  in  case 
the  Count  could  be  persuaded  to  undertake  the  convoy  and 
debarkation  of  the  troops,  he  left  that  officer  for  the  pur- 
pose of  further  consultation  with  the  admiral. 

Two  days  after,  Lafayette  came  back  with  the  report  that 
the  Count  de  Grasse  would  be  happy  to  be  able  to  make 
the  expedition  to  Charlestown,  all  the  advantages  of  which 
he  felt,  but  the  orders  of  his  court,  ulterior  projects,  and 
his  engagements  with  the  Spaniards  rendered  it  impossible 
to  remain  the  necessary  time  for  the  operations  against 
1  Washington's  Writings,  vol.  VIII,  185-186. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  483 

Charlestown;  but  conditionally  promising  to  assist  the 
Marquis  against  Wilmington,  that  requiring  less  time.^ 

This  was  but  a  repetition  of  D'Estaing's  conduct  be- 
fore Savannah  in  1779.  A  second  time  the  French  fleet 
abandoned  the  Americans  just  at  the  point  at  which  the 
most  important  success  might  have  been  obtained.  Gen- 
eral Washington  did  not  overstate  the  position,  —  Charles- 
town  could  at  this  juncture  easily  have  been  taken  and  the 
war  ended.  But  the  interests  of  the  States  were  not  al- 
ways the  interests  of  the  French  allies. 

The  fall  of  Cornwallis,  however,  enabled  Washington 
to  send  at  last  some  reenforcements  to  South  Carolina. 
The  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  Continentals 
were  ordered  to  General  Greene.  Colonels  Shelby  and 
Sevier  also  joined  him  about  the  end  of  October  with  five 
hundred  men,  and  a  detachment  of  one  hundred  and  sixty 
North  Carolina  recruits  were  added  to  his  infantry.  The 
approach  of  these  corps  was  the  signal  for  preparing  for 
active  movements,  the  weather  had  become  cold,  the  frosts 
had  delivered  his  army  from  the  remains  of  their  agues, 
the  survivors  of  his  wounded  had  rejoined  their  regiments, 
and  the  corps  under  Sumter,  Marion,  and  their  officers 
were  recruiting  and  concentrating. 

The  intelligence  of  the  surrender  of  Yorktown  reached 
the  American  camp  the  last  of  October,  but  the  official 
communication  was  not  received  until  the  9th  of  Novem- 
ber.    The  day  was  observed  in  camp  as  a  day  of  jubilee.^ 

Relying  upon  his  increased  strength  by  the  arrival  of 
Shelby  and  Sevier,  and  the  reenforcements  on  the  march 
to  join  him,  General  Greene  determined  again  to  cross  the 
Congaree  for  the  long-wished-for  purpose  of  driving  the 
enemy  into   Charlestown.      Every  consideration  induced 

1  Washington's  Writings,  vol.  VIII,  187. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  252. 


484  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

this  move.  Governor  Rutledge,  who  was  now  with  his 
army,  was  busy  reorganizing  a  State  government.  He  had, 
iu  pursuance  of  the  powers  conferred  upon  him,  issued  a 
proclamation  for  the  election  of  members  of  a  General 
Assembly  under  the  constitution  of  1778,  and  it  was  of 
the  highest  importance  to  recover  as  much  ground  as  pos- 
sible that  elections  might  generally  be  held  for  members 
of  the  Legislature.  Military  motives  also  concurred  in 
rendering  the  movement  in  the  highest  degree  advisable. 
The  surrender  of  Lord  Cornwallis  put  an  end  to  the  pur- 
pose of  Greene's  remaining  north  of  the  Santee,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  Marion  had  received  intelligence  from 
Charlestown  of  an  intention  on  the  part  of  the  enemy  to 
evacuate  that  place  and  concentrate  his  force  at  Savannah. 
This  movement,  it  is  supposed,  was  contemplated  by  the 
British  on  the  supposition  that  some  such  plan  as  that 
which  had  been  urged  upon  De  Grasse  would  be  undertaken. 
Greene,  it  is  true,  did  not  credit  the  information  except  as 
dependent  on  an  event  which  he  knew,  and  the  enemy 
did  not  know,  would  not  take  place  —  the  cooperation  of 
the  French  fleet.  Still,  as  the  apprehension  of  such  a 
combined  operation  did  exist  on  the  part  of  the  enemy,  it 
was  important  for  the  American  general  to  be  in  a  position 
to  meet  any  such  movement  should  it,  upon  some  false 
alarm,  be  attempted ;  and  all  his  arrangements  were  accord- 
ingly made.  Shelby,  Sevier,  Horry,  and  Maham  were 
ordered  to  place  themselves  under  Marion,  to  act  in  the 
country  between  the  Santee  and  Charlestown.  Together 
they  formed  a  very  efficient  corps  of  mounted  infantry 
and  riflemen.  General  Sumter  was  ordered,  at  the  head 
of  his  brigade  of  State  troops  and  a  detachment  of  his 
militia  brigade,  to  take  post  at  Orangeburgh  and  cover  the 
country  from  the  inroads  of  the  Loyalists  from  Charles- 
town;   while  Pickens,   with   Colonel   Robert   Anderson's 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  485 

regiment  and  a  part  of  Colonel  Samuel  Hammond's,  was 
despatched  to  put  down  an  uprising  of  the  Indians.^ 

In  the  early  part  of  November  Sumter  and  Marion 
crossed  the  rivers  and  advanced  upon  the  enemy.  Sumter 
crossed  the  Congaree  on  Monday,  the  12th,  and  early  the 
following  morning  Major  Blewford,  with  seventy  mounted 
men,  was  despatched  after  a  Tory  Captain  Giessendanner, 
who,  Sumter  Avas  informed,  had  just  arrived  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Orangeburgh  with  some  wagons  escorted  by 
sixty  men.  Two  men  only  were  found  at  Giessendanner's, 
who  fired  at  the  party  and  escaped.  Major  Moore  of 
the  State  troops,  who  was  to  have  joined  Major  Blew- 
ford at  Giessendanner's,  passed  on  to  Orangeburgh  and 
thence  set  out  for  Rowe's  plantation,  two  miles  distant. 
Unfortunately  he  fell  in  with  General  Cuningham  and  a 
large  party  lately  from  Charlestown.  The  enemy  at  first 
gave  way,  but  their  superior  numbers  soon  prevailed,  and 
pressing  Moore's  men  back,  the  latter  gave  way  in  turn 
and  were  thrown  into  disorder  by  a  heavy  fire  from  a 
party  concealed  in  a  swamp ;  a  rout  ensued.  Some  of  the 
scattered  troops  reached  Major  Blewford  and  with  him 
joined  Sumter  eight  miles  above  Orangeburgh.  Cuning- 
ham's  force  was  upwards  of  500  men.  Sumter  had 
with  him  418.2  This  reverse  caused  Sumter  to  fall 
back;  but  his  advance  had  been  fortunately  timed  to 
check  the  further  progress  of  General  Cuningham  who 
had  issued  from  Charlestown  upon  a  more  formidable 
expedition  to  the  upper  country,  than  those  of  which  an 
account  was  given  in  the  last  chapter.  General  Marion 
was  also  checked  in  his  advance  by  encountering  at  Wan- 
toot  Colonel  Stuart,  who  had  returned  to  the  field,  at  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  258;  Johnson's  Traditions,  515. 

2  Sumter's  letter  to  Greene,  November  14,  1781,  Nightingale  Collection, 
Tear  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  55. 


486  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

head  of  nearly  two  thousand  men.  The  enemy,  it  seems, 
were  at  this  time  seriously  engaged  in  preparing  to  sustain 
a  siege  in  Charlestown,  anticipating  the  cooperation  of  the 
French,  and  were  laying  in  provisions  and  collecting  the 
slaves  in  the  country,  first  for  fortifying  Charlestown,  and 
then  to  be  appropriated  as  plunder.  ^ 

On  the  18th  of  November  the  camp  at  the  High  Hills  was 
a  second  time  broken  up;  and  as  the  route  to  be  pursued 
led  the  army  away  from  the  support  of  Marion,  who  was 
charged  with  guarding  the  left  of  the  army  on  its  march. 
Captain  Eggleston,  with  the  Legion  strengthened  by  a  de- 
tachment from  the  Virginia  line,  was  ordered  to  join  him. 
The  main  army  then  took  up  the  line  of  march  on  the 
route  by  Simons's  and  McCord's  ferries  through  Orange- 
burgh  to  Riddlesperger's,  thence  by  the  Indian  Fields  road 
to  Ferguson's  Mill,  where  that  road  crosses  the  Edisto, 
intending  to  take  post  at  Mr.  Sanders's  plantation  on  the 
Round  O.  Greene's  intention  appears  to  have  been  to 
take  a  position  on  the  Four  Hole  Swamp  in  the  parish  of 
St.  George,  Dorchester,  east  of  the  Edisto,  about  thirty  miles 
from  Charlestown,  for  the  double  purpose  of  covering  the 
country  beyond  him  and  controlling  the  movements  of  the 
enemy  on  his  right  towards  Savannah ;  but  an  event  had 
now  occurred  which  rendered  it  indispensable  that  he 
should  have  the  Edisto  between  himself  and  the  enemy. 

It  was  on  the  sufficiency  of  the  force  assembled  under 
Marion  to  keep  in  check  that  of  the  enemy  under  Stuart 
that  Greene  had  ventured  to  advance  to  the  Four  Holes, 
or  meditated  taking  a  position  so  much  exposed  to  an 
attack  from  Charlestown.  The  mountaineers  under  Shelby 
and  Sevier  constituted  the  reenforcement  upon  which  he 
had  ventured  into  the  field.  And  this  force,  to  his  aston- 
ishment, now  deserted  him.  He  had  been  given  to  under- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  258. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  487 

stand  that  they  were  to  remain  in  service  "  until  the  spring 
of  the  year  or  until  Charlestown  was  reduced."  To  his 
disappointment  and  surprise  they  all  abandoned  Marion 
by  the  25th  of  November.  Johnson  supposes  that  this 
was  caused  by  Shelby's  obtaining  leave  of  absence,  or  per- 
haps because  the  service  at  the  time  was  not  sufficiently 
active  for  their  habits.  Greene  had  warned  Marion  that 
he  must  give  them  something  to  do,  or  they  would  become 
dissatisfied.  1  But  in  all  his  efforts  to  effect  this  Marion 
had  been  unsuccessful.  He  had  approached  the  enemy, 
but  could  not  tempt  him  from  his  encampment.  With 
numbers  known  to  be  decidedly  superior  to  the  Americans, 
it  was  with  chagrin  that  Marion  found  it  impossible  to 
induce  him  to  take  the  field.  And  it  was  not  until  Stuart 
decamped  from  Wantoot  and  retired  near  to  the  Goose 
Creek  bridge  that  Marion  discovered  the  cause.  The 
orderly  of  Colonel,  now  G  eneral,  Stuart  —  he  having  lately 
been  promoted  —  fell  into  the  hands  of  Marion,  and  on  him 
was  found  a  return  from  which  it  appeared  that  out  of 
2272  men  the  enemy  had  928  on  the  sick  list.  To  keep 
hold  on  public  opinion,  to  command  the  country,  or  to  col- 
lect provisions  and  plunder  slaves,  the  enemy  had  kept  the 
field  in  the  Low-Country  amidst  the  swamps  and  rice  fields 
during  the  whole  fall,  the  sickliest  season  of  the  year.  To 
the  recently  arrived  Europeans  this  was  most  deadly ;  and 
very  many  of  them  fell  a  prey  to  disease. 

The  only  services  in  which  the  mountaineers  were 
employed  while  with  Marion  were  in  attacks  upon  the 
post  at  Fair  Lawn  and  on  the  redoubts  at  Wappetaw  in 
St.  Thomas's  Parish.  Detachments  of  about  200  of  them, 
supported  by  Maham's  cavalry  of  about  180,  were  in  both 
instances  employed  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Shelby. 
The  latter  place,  on  being  approached,  was  abandoned,  for 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  260. 


488  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

General  Stuart  was  then  drawing  in  his  forces  under  the 
protection  of  Charlestown. 

The  attack  on  Fair  Lawn  was  made  while  the  enemy  lay 
at  Wantoot.  A  garrison  of  considerable  strength  had  been 
usually  kept  at  that  post  to  cover  the  landing-place  on 
Cooper  River;  but  when  the  main  army  of  the  British  lay 
in  advance  of  it,  the  garrison  had  been  weakened,  no  doubt 
upon  the  supposition  that  its  services  were  rendered 
unnecessary.  Marion  knew  that  the  garrison  was  re- 
duced, and  determined  to  strike  a  blow  turning  the  enemy's 
left,  and  moving  rapidly  into  their  rear.  The  landing- 
place  was  covered  by  a  fort  of  too  much  strength  to  be 
carried  by  assault  with  such  troops  as  Shelby's  and 
Maham's ;  but  at  the  distance  of  half  a  mile  was  Colleton's 
house,  a  strong  brick  building  built  at  a  very  early  period, 
and  known  to  have  been  constructed  for  defence  as  well  as 
comfort.  This  had  been  enclosed  by  a  strong  abatis,  and 
being  on  the  route  from  Charlestown  to  Monck's  Corner, 
had  been  used  as  a  station  for  their  troops  and  convoys  in 
passing  from  post  to  post.  It  was  sufficiently  capacious  to 
cover  a  party  of  considerable  strength,  and  was  unassail- 
able by  cavalry,  the  only  force  from  which  sudden  incur- 
sions could  be  apprehended.  It  was  also  a  convenient 
depot  in  the  transportation  of  negroes,  stock,  etc., 
taken  above  the  British  posts  and  moving  to  Charlestown, 
and  had  been  used  also  as  a  hospital. 

In  passing  the  post  at  Wantoot,  Maham  was  ordered  to 
show  himself  and  to  endeavor  to  draw  the  British  cavalry 
into  the  field.  The  manoeuvre  did  not  succeed,  but  it 
brought  out  a  strong  detachment  to  tread  on  his  heels  and 
preclude  the  possibility  of  his  effecting  anything  further 
unless  with  great  despatch. 

On  approaching  Fair  Lawn  on  the  morning  of  the  27th 
of  November,  everything  within  the  abatis  indicated  resist- 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  489 

ance ;  and  the  loss  of  time,  with  the  fort  in  view  and  the 
enemy  in  his  rear,  must  have  resulted  in  disappointment. 
A  party  of  riflemen  were  at  once  ordered  to  dismount  and 
to  move  as  infantry,  while  the  remainder  of  the  corps, 
headed  by  the  cavalry,  advanced  boldly  into  the  field  and 
demanded  a  surrender.  No  resistance  was  made  and  the 
place  surrendered  at  discretion.  In  it  were  found  three 
hundred  stands  of  arms,  many  stores  of  value,  some  sick, 
and  eighty  convalescents.  The  medical  men  were  paroled, 
and  the  convalescents  carried  off  on  horseback  behind 
Maham's  men.  But  the  house  with  its  contents  and  the 
abatis  were  committed  to  flames.^ 

General  Stuart,  insolently  addressing  General  Marion 
through  the  adjutant  general  instead  of  writing  himself, 
complained  of  the  taking  and  burning  of  this  place  as  an 
outrage  upon  a  parcel  of  sick  and  helpless  soldiers  in  a 
hospital.  "  The  burning  an  Hospital,"  he  wrote,  "  and  drag- 
ging away  a  number  of  dying  people  to  expire  in  swamps 
is  a  species  of  barbarity  hitherto  unknown  in  civilized 
nations  —  especially  when  that  hospital  has  been  left  with- 
out a  guard  for  its  defence  —  that  could  justify  an  attack 
upon  the  defenceless  inhabitants."  ^  This  complaint  was 
communicated  by  Marion  to  General  Greene,  who  at  once 
called  upon  Colonel  Maham  for  a  report  of  the  facts.  He 
wrote  to  Marion :  "  I  shall  be  obliged  to  Colonel  Maham  to 
give  me  a  particular  report  of  the  condition  of  the  prisoners 
he  made  as  well  as  the  manner  of  making  them,  also  the 
special  reasons  which  induced  him  to  burn  the  Hospital. 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  the  burning  the  Hospital 
was  to  destroy  the  stores,  which  could  not  be  effected  in 
any  other  way ;  but  I  wish  to  have  materials  to  con- 
tradict their  charges  with."^     We  have  no  record  of  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  260-262. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  213.         »  Ihid.,  215. 


490  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

report  then  called  for;  but  the  practical  answer  to  the 
charge  was  the  delivering  at  the  High  Hills,  the  American 
depot,  of  eighty  prisoners  all  able  to  bear  arms.^  An  enemy 
has  no  right  to  protect  a  depot  of  stores,  arms,  and  plunder 
by  hoisting  over  it  a  hospital  flag. 

Major  William  Cuningham  now  again  made  his  appear- 
ance, dashing  into  Orangeburgh,  and  surprising  Colonel 
Richard  Hampton,  killing  eleven  of  his  men,  and  dispersing 
the  rest  without  the  loss  of  a  man  to  his  own  party .^ 

General  Greene  received  with  astonishment  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  intended  return  of  the  mountaineers.  Upon  this 
reenforcement  he  had  ventured  across  the  Santee,  and  was 
now  too  far  advanced  to  recede.  Marion,  also  relying  on 
this  support,  had  passed  the  Santee  and  penetrated  down 
the  country  on  the  enemy's  right.  The  most  pressing  en- 
treaties were  despatched  to  prevail  on  the  mountaineers  to 
remain,  but  before  the  message  reached  Marion's  camp, 
there  was  not  one  of  them  left.  Fortunately,  however, 
Greene's  movement  across  the  Congaree  had  induced 
Stuart  to  draw  toward  Charlestown  and  leave  Marion  in 
safety;  and  that  movement  of  the  enemy,  evincing  his  igno- 
rance of  the  actual  state  of  the  American  army,  or  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  weakness,  induced  Greene  to 
undertake  an  enterprise  calculated  both  to  confirm  the 
enemy  in  his  opinion  of  the  American  strength,  and,  by 
forcing  him  into  Charlestown  without  risking  an  action,  to 
secure  the  entire  command  of  the  State.  This  was  an 
important  object  just  at  this  time,  as  it  would  assist  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  in  his  plans  for  the  election  of  the  General 
Assembly  he  was  about  to  convene.^ 

With  these  views.  General  Greene,  leaving  the  army  on 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  263. 

2  The  Boyal  Gazette,  November  21,  1781. 
^  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  264. 


IN  THE  BEVOLUTION  491 

its  march  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Williams,  moved 
briskly  forward  towards  Dorchester  at  the  head  of  about 
two  hundred  cavalry  of  Lee's  and  Washington's  com- 
mands, and  one  hundred  drawn  from  Sumter's.  The  infantry 
consisted  of  those  of  the  Legion  and  detachments  from  the 
Maryland  and  Virginia  lines.  In  the  absence  of  Washing- 
ton, who  was  a  prisoner,  and  Lee,  who  was  an  invalid,  the 
command  of  the  cavalry  was  given  to  Colonel  Wade  Hamp- 
ton,i  ^]^Q^  in  his  short  career,  had  already  risen  high  in 
the  confidence  of  the  general  in  command  and  of  his  troops. 
Colonel  Williams  was  directed  to  advance  by  easy 
marches  to  the  Four  Hole,  a  branch  of  the  Edisto,  while 
the  general  hastened  by  a  circuitous  route  in  the  hope 
that  he  would  surprise  the  post  at  Dorchester,  garrisoned 
at  the  time  by  400  infantry,  all  the  British  cavalry,  not, 
however,  exceeding  150,  and  some  militia.  But  notwith- 
standing the  celerity  of  his  movements,  the  pursuit  of  the 
least-frequented  paths,  and  every  precaution  for  preventing 
intelligence,  he  was  so  watched  and  surrounded  by  Loyalists 
in  the  woods  and  swamps  that  notice  of  his  approach  pre- 
ceded him  half  a  day,  and  the  enemy  lay  on  their  arms  all  the 
night  of  the  30th,  expecting  an  attack.  As  Greene  did  not 
appear,  at  a  late  hour  on  the  1st  of  December  a  reconnoi- 
tring party  of  fifty  Loyalists  was  despatched  for  intelli- 
gence. Hampton's  advance  guard  fell  in  with  this  party, 
and  suffered  but  few  of  them  to  escape.  Twenty  or  thirty, 
chiefly  Loyalists,  were  killed,  wounded,  or  taken,  and  such 
an  alarm  excited  by  the  presence  of  the  general  and  the 
belief  that  his  whole  American  force  was  upon  them,  that 
during  the  night  the  garrison  destroyed  everything,  threw 
their  cannon  into  the  Ashley  River,  and  retreated  to  Charles- 
town.  ^     The  fort  at  Dorchester   was  so  situated   that  a 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  264. 

*  Ibid. ;  Greene's  letter  to  Sumter,  Sumter's  MSS. 


492  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  OAROLLNA 

retreat  from  it  was  practicable  either  by  land  or  water,  and 
either  on  the  east  or  west  side  of  the  river,  whichever  was 
most  secure  from  annoyance.  Abridge  on  the  east  side 
of  the  river  being  taken  up,  the  advance  of  the  Americans 
on  that  side  was  stopped ;  but  Greene  could  not  have  pur- 
sued, as  the  enemy  was  too  strong  for  the  force  he  had 
with  him.     Their  infantry  exceeded  five  hundred. 

The  enemy  halted  and  was  reenforced  at  the  Quarter 
House,  about  five  miles  from  the  city,  where  the  neck  is 
very  narrow ;  and  General  Stuart  making  a  simultaneous 
movement  from  Goose  Creek  bridge  to  the  same  point, 
all  the  force  that  could  be  summoned  from  Charlestown 
joined  them,  and  the  whole  were  actively  engaged  in  pre- 
paring to  resist  an  immediate  attack.^ 

The  Royal  Crazette  of  November  7th  announced  the 
arrival  of  General  Leslie  and  a  corps  of  artillery  for  the 
garrison.  To  this  had  also  been  added  the  garrison 
of  Wilmington  under  Colonel  Craig,  which,  upon  the 
approach  of  Lafayette,  had  evacuated  that  town.  Gen- 
eral Leslie,  who  relieved  General  Stuart  of  command,  had 
now  a  force  in  the  town  and  its  immediate  neighborhood  of 
3300  men  besides  1000  Loyalists.  But  so  alarmed  was  he 
at  the  approach  of  Greene  and  the  anticipated  siege,  that 
he  resolved  to  embody  into  regiments  the  young  and  active  of 
the  slaves  that  had  recently  been  crowded  into  the  town, 
—  a  measure  which  proved  most  unpopular,  and  was  aban- 
doned when  the  alarm  subsided. 

Count  Kosciuszko,  who  was  serving  as  an  engineer  on 
Greene's  staff,  had  preceded  the  army  and  had  selected  San- 
ders's plantation  on  the  Round  O  as  a  proper  position  for 
an  encampment.  This  place  is  situated  between  the 
swamp  or  river  of  that  name,  and  the  Ashepoo,  about  forty 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  264,  265 ;  Memoirs  of  the  War  of 
1776  (Lee),  523-524. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  493 

or  fifty  miles  to  the  southwest  of  Charlestown,  and  ten 
northeast  of  the  present  Walterboro,  thus  commanding 
the  communication  between  Charlestown  and  Savannah. 

The  whole  British  force  was  thus  crowded  into  the  town 
and  the  narrow  isthmus,  or  neck,  as  it  is  called,  between  the 
Cooper  and  the  Ashley  rivers.  To  relieve  this  Colonel 
Craig,  the  commandant  of  the  garrison  of  Wilmington, 
with  some  additional  infantry  and  cavalry,  was  detached 
to  John's  Island  to  the  south  of  the  town,  where  most  of 
the  cattle  collected  for  the  British  army  were  at  pasture, 
where  long  forage  was  procurable  for  the  cavalry,  where 
cooperation  with  the  garrison  of  Charlestown  was  con- 
venient, and  whence  infantry  might  be  readily  transported 
along  the  interior  navigation  to  Savannah.^ 

General  Greene  took  up  his  headquarters  at  Round  O 
on  the  7th  of  December.  Marion  was  advanced  nearer  to 
Charlestown  to  keep  the  right  of  the  enemy  in  check.  He 
took  post  at  Wadboo  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Cooper.^ 
Sumter  occupied  Orangeburgh  and  the  Four  Holes.  Colonel 
Wade  Hampton  with  fifty  of  the  State  cavalry  kept  open 
the  communication  between  Sumter  and  Marion.  Colonels 
Harden  and  Wilkinson  watched  the  enemy's  movements  on 
the  south,  while  Colonel  Lee,  who  had  rejoined  the  army, 
in  command  of  the  light  detachment  posted  in  advance, 
kept  the  enemy  from  prying  into  the  real  weakness  of  the 
American  army.  This  was  indeed  necessary,  for  the  invest- 
ing force  did  not  at  this  time  number  eight  hundred  men, 
nor  had  the  army  four  rounds  of  ammunition  to  a  man.^ 

Prior  to  General  Greene's  leaving  the  High  Hills  the  last 
time,  he  had  been  straitened  for  ammunition.     For  ten  days 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  265  ;  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776 
(Lee),  524. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion^  148. 

8  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  266. 


494  HISTORY  OP  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

after  he  was  ready  to  march  he  had  been  detained  there  for 
no  other  cause.  A  small  supply  had  arrived  before  the  march 
of  the  main  army,  and  he  had  despatched  officers  in  the  hope 
of  obtaining  some  addition  to  his  stock  from  the  stores  cap- 
tured at  Yorktown.  But  no  ammunition  had  arrived,  whilst 
all  were  clamoring,  from  Georgia  to  Santee,  for  cartridges.^ 
The  quartermaster's  department  was  also  in  such  a  con- 
dition that,  had  the  army  depended  upon  it  for  subsistence, 
General  Greene  could  not  have  ventured  to  advance. 
Indeed,  to  relieve  this  department  of  this  heavy  part  of  its 
duties  was  one  of  the  principal  motives  for  taking  the 
position  at  Round  O.^  Colonel  Lee  thus  grandiloquently 
describes  the  section,  into  which  he  now  for  the  first 
time  entered.^  The  first  day's  march,  he  says,  brought 
the  detachments  to  the  country  settled  by  the  original 
emigrants  into  Carolina.  The  scene  was  both  new  and 
delightful.  Vestiges,  though  clouded  by  war,  every- 
where appeared  of  the  wealth  and  taste  of  the  inhabit- 
ants. Spacious  edifices,  rich  and  elegant  gardens,  with 
luxuriant  and  extensive  rice  plantations,  were  to  be  seen 
on  every  side.  This  change  in  the  aspect  of  inanimate 
nature  could  not  fail  to  excite  emotions  of  pleasure  the 
more  vivid  because  so  rare.  During  our  continued  marches 
and  countermarches  never  before  had  we  been  solaced 
with  the  prospect  of  so  much  comfort.  Here  we  were  not 
confined  to  one  solitary  mansion  where  a  few,  and  a  few 
only,  might  enjoy  the  charms  of  taste  and  the  luxury  of 
opulence.  The  rich  repast  was  widespread,  and  when  to 
the  exterior  was  added  the  fashion,  politeness,  and  hospital- 
ity of  the  interior,  we  became  enraptured  with  our  changed 
condition,  and  the  resolve  of  never  yielding  up  this  charm- 
ing region  but  with  life  became  universal.     To  crown  our 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  268.  ^  j^^^ 

3  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776,  525. 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  495 

bliss,  the  fair  sex  shone  in  its  brightest  lustre.  With  the 
ripest  and  most  symmetrical  beauty,  our  fair  compatriots 
blended  sentimental  dignity  and  delicate  refinement,  the 
sympathetic  shade  of  melancholy,  and  the  dawning  smile 
of  hope,  the  arrival  of  their  new  guests  opening  to  them 
the  prospect  of  happier  times.  In  more  prosaic  language, 
Greene  had  now  been  able  to  move  the  army  into  a  rich 
and  plentiful  country,  which  had  been  comparatively  little 
devastated  by  the  war.  Prevost  had  made  a  rapid  incur- 
sion through  it  in  1779,  nearly  three  years  before,  and  had 
done  some  mischief,  and  during  the  siege  of  Charlestown, 
two  years  before,  the  British  foraging  parties  had  made 
free  with  stock  and  provisions ;  but  for  more  than  eighteen 
months  this  part  of  the  country  had  suffered  little,  Marion 
and  Harden  in  their  raids  doing  as  little  damage  as  possi- 
ble to  the  property  of  the  people,  who  they  knew  at  heart 
were  in  sympathy  with  their  cause.  True  it  was  that 
many  of  the  estates  of  the  Whigs  had  been  sequestered  by 
the  British  authorities  and  maintained  for  the  supply  of 
their  army.  But  this  measure  had  the  good  effect,  in  the 
case  of  those  owners  who  had  fled  to  the  American  camp, 
or  been  imprisoned,  of  preserving  these  plantations  in  at 
least  some  degree  of  order,  though  Governor  Mathews  had 
occasion  to  observe  to  General  Leslie  that  in  many  cases 
they  had  been  stripped  of  negroes  and  of  horses  and  cattle. 
In  assuming  the  position  at  Round  O,  therefore,  Greene 
had  greatly  improved  the  opportunity  of  subsisting  his 
army,  while  he  added  to  its  strength  by  releasing  so  many 
more  of  those  who  had  yet  regarded  themselves  bound  by 
their  paroles. 

There  was  another  consideration  of  great  importance  in 
the  move  to  this  position.  It  had  at  first  been  determined 
by  Governor  Rutledge  and  his  Council  to  convene  the 
General  Assembly  at  Camden,  but  General  Greene,  after 


496  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

his  excursion  to  Dorchester,  had,  with  an  escort  of  cavalry, 
reconnoitred  the  country  between  the  Edisto  and  Ashepoo 
and  found  it  possessed  in  his  opinion  of  sufficient  military 
advantages  to  admit  his  securing  Jacksonborough  from 
danger.  He  had  therefore  warmly  pressed  the  Governor 
and  Council  to  convene  the  Legislature  at  this  place,  for 
the  double  purpose  of  presenting  on  the  one  hand  the 
evidence  of  a  complete  recovery  of  the  State,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  held  them  secure  from  any  sudden  attempt 
from  the  Loyalists  of  the  Saluda  or  Deep  River,  such  as 
had  been  successfully  made  on  Governor  Burke  in  North 
Carolina,  and  was  afterward  repeated  in  the  Georgia  Legis- 
lature. Boldness  and  caution  alike  therefore  sanctioned 
the  holding  of  the  Legislature  at  Jacksonborough,  which 
the  position  of  the  army  now  fully  covered.^ 

Colonel  John  Laurens,  who  had  been  included  in  the 
capitulation  of  Charlestown,  had  been  soon  released,  his 
exchange  having  been  expedited  by  Congress  for  the  pur- 
pose of  sending  him  on  a  special  embassy  to  Paris,  that 
he  might  urge  the  necessity  of  a  vigorous  cooperation  on 
the  part  of  France.  He  had  sailed  in  February,  1781,  and 
there,  in  conjunction  with  Dr.  Franklin  and  Count  De 
Vergennes,  arranged  the  plan  of  the  campaign  of  the  year 
which  eventuated  in  the  surrender  of  Lord  Cornwallis,  and 
finally  in  a  termination  of  the  war.  Within  six  months 
from  the  day  Colonel  Laurens  left  America  he  returned 
and  brought  with  him  the  concerted  plan  of  combined 
operations.  Ardent  to  rejoin  the  army,  he  remained  only 
long  enough  at  Philadelphia  to  make  a  report  of  his  nego- 
tiations to  Congress,  before  setting  out  to  resume  his  place 
as  one  of  the  aids  of  General  Washington.  He  was  then 
at  his  post  in  the  field  again  when  the  operations  he  had 
arranged  for  in  the  cabinet  at  Paris  began.  In  the  course 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  278. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  497 

of  the  siege  he,  with  Colonel  Hamilton,  led  the  storming 
parties  at  Yorktown  which  hastened  the  surrender  of  the 
British.  He  had  thus  had  the  honor  of  negotiating  the 
articles  of  Cornwallis's  capitulation  on  behalf  of  Washing- 
ton. This  concluded,  he  hastened  at  once  to  rejoin  his 
comrades  in  his  native  State  in  their  struggle  for  its  re- 
covery, now  so  far  advanced  to  a  successful  completion. ^ 
General  Greene  at  once  formed  and  placed  under  his  com- 
mand a  detachment  charged  with  cooperating  in  the  meas- 
ures previously  adopted  for  confining  the  enemy  to  the 
limits  to  which  he  was  now  restricted. 

Laurens  was  so  great  a  favorite,  and  so  well  known 
in  the  Low-Country  of  South  Carolina,  that  he  soon 
found  the  means  of  opening  a  communication  with 
Charlestown,  and  through  one  of  the  channels  of  infor- 
mation he  had  opened  he  learned,  on  the  25th  of  December, 
the  rumor  that  a  fleet  from  Ireland  with  three  thousand 
troops  on  board  was  within  two  days'  sail  of  the  bar ;  that 
some  of  the  officers  had  actually  arrived,  and  that  a  reen- 
forcement  of  two  thousand  more  was  hourly  expected 
from  New  York.  Lee,  who  was  at  the  same  time  with 
his  detachment  low  down  Ashley  River,  received  the  same 
intelligence  ;  and  reeking  couriers  from  both  these  officers 
arrived  at  the  same  moment  in  the  American  camp. 
General  Greene  received  these  reports  as  confirmation 
of  an  event  he  had  repeatedly  foretold,  that  the  British 
army  to  the  South  would  be  reenforced  as  well  to  main- 
tain the  uti  posidetis  principle  for  which  England  was 
negotiating,  ^  as  because  the  war  must  languish  altogether 

1  Ramsay's  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  499,  600;  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington, 
vol.  IV,  465. 

2  The  opposition  in  Parliament  in  England  claimed  that  no  treaty  of 
peace  should  have  been  entered  into  with  the  American  Colonies,  which 
required  the  evacuation  of  New  York  and  Charlestown  and  the  ahandon- 

VOL.  IV.  —  2  k 


498  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

unless  pressed  in  this  quarter.  Recent  movements  among 
the  Indians  which  have  been  mentioned,  the  never  failing 
presage  of  movements  in  the  British  army,  had  also  taken 
place;  her  own  diminished  and  ill-provided  condition  invited 
attack,  and  the  source  of  this  information  appeared  of  un- 
questionable authority.  General  Greene  was  much  alarmed, 
and  the  night  was  consumed  in  preparing  despatches  to 
Count  Rochambeau,  the  governors  of  Virginia,  Maryland, 
and  North  Carolina,  earnestly  soliciting  immediate  support. 
To  insure  despatch  and  effect  to  these  applications  and 
hasten  the  advance  of  St.  Clair  ^  and  Wayne  ^  with  the 
Continental  troops  on  their  way  to  join  him,  officers  of 
known  zeal  and  fidelity  were  made  the  bearers  of  these 
messages. 

Had  the  intelligence  which  had  produced  such  excite- 
ment in  the  American  camp  been  really  true,  there 
can  be  little  doubt,  says  Johnson,  that  Greene  must  once 
more  have  jdelded  up  all  his  hard-earned  conquests. 
Count  Rochambeau  pleaded  the  want  of  instruction  from 
his  court,  and  could  promise  no  support  until  Greene 
should  be  pushed  back  into  Virginia.  North  Carolina, 
since  the  capture  of  Governor  Burke,  was  in  such  a  state 
of  confusion  that  she  could  not  get  her  Legislature 
together.  And  Virginia,  convulsed  by  a  quarrel  with 
her  own  governor  and  with  Morris,  the  financier  of  the 
United  States,  without  a   farthing  in  her  treasury  or  a 

ment  of  the  Loyalists.  The  cities,  being  still  in  the  actual  occupation 
of  the  British  forces,  should  have  been  retained.  (Wraxall's  Memoirs^ 
vol.  Ill,  805.) 

1  Major-General  Arthur  St.  Clair  of  Pennsylvania,  in  command  of  the 
detachment  of  Washington's  army  consisting  of  the  Pennsylvania  and 
Virginia  lines,  now  on  the  march  to  join  Greene. 

2  Brigadier-General  Anthony  Wayne  of  Pennsylvania,  "  Mad  Anthony" 
as  he  was  called  for  his  reckless  courage,  commanding  the  Pennsylvania 
line  under  St.  Clair. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  499 

prospect  of  any  kind,  so  impoverished  that  her  thousand 
recruits  in  depot  were  kept  from  perishing  only  by  the 
private  advances  of  the  gentlemen  at  the  head  of  the 
War  Department,  could  only  promise  that  those  recruits 
should  be  immediately  marched  to  headquarters.  Militia, 
she  could  send  none.^ 

Under  the  pressure  of  this  alarm.  General  Greene  ad- 
dressed to  Governor  Rutledge  a  letter  which  was  the 
subject  of  much  animadversion  at  the  time.  It  was,  how- 
ever, but  a  renewal  of  the  scheme  proposed  by  Colonel 
John  Laurens  in  1780  for  embodying  negro  troops.  At 
great  length  General  Greene  laid  before  Governor  Rutledge 
the  desperate  condition  of  affairs,  notwithstanding  the  pres- 
ent reoccupation  of  so  much  of  the  State.  He  pointed  out 
the  preparation  the  British  were  making  in  Charlestown 
for  its  defence,  the  measures  taken  to  incorporate  the 
Tories,  embodying  the  negroes  on  their  side,  and  the  in- 
citement of  the  savages  on  the  frontier.  He  represented 
that,  should  the  enemy  have  in  contemplation  offensive 
operations  in  this  quarter,  they  would  undoubtedly  reen- 
force  their  army  here  and  oblige  him  to  fall  back,  and  once 
more  give  the  enemy  command  of  the  most  fertile  part  of 
the  State.  That  then  a  change  of  sentiment  might  also 
take  place  among  the  inhabitants  —  new  difficulties  arise, 
and  the  issue  of  the  war  be  protracted,  if  not  rendered 
doubtful.  Good  policy,  therefore,  dictated  that  they  should 
strengthen  themselves  by  every  means  the  natural  resources 
of  the  country  would  admit.  He  represented  the  futility 
of  depending  upon  the  North  for  assistance.  Then,  dis- 
cussing the  military  situation,  he  proceeded :  — 

"  The  natural  strength  of  the  country  in  point  of  numbers  appears 
to  me  to  consist  much  more  in  the  blacks  than  in  the  whites.  Could 
they  be  incorporated  and  employed  for  its  defence  it  would  afford  you 

1  Johnson's  Lift  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  271,  272. 


500  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

double  security.  That  they  would  make  good  soldiers  I  have  not  the 
least  doubt ;  and  I  am  persuaded  the  State  has  it  not  in  its  power  to 
give  sufficient  reinforcement  without  incorporating  them  either  to 
secure  the  country,  if  the  enemy  mean  to  act  vigorously  upon  offen- 
sive plan,  or  furnish  a  force  sufficient  to  dispossess  them  of  Charles- 
town  should  it  be  defensive. 

"  The  number  of  whites  in  this  State  is  too  small,  and  the  state  of 
your  finances  too  low,  to  raise  a  force  in  any  other  way.  Should  the 
measure  be  adopted  it  may  prove  a  good  means  of  preventing  the 
enemy  from  further  attempts  upon  this  country,  when  they  find  they 
have  not  only  the  whites,  but  the  blacks  also  to  contend  with  ;  and  I 
believe  it  is  generally  agreed  that  if  the  natural  strength  of  the  country 
could  have  been  employed  in  its  defence,  the  enemy  would  have  found 
it  little  less  than  impracticable  to  have  got  footing  here,  much  more 
to  have  overrun  the  country ;  by  which  the  inhabitants  have  suffered 
infinitely  greater  loss  than  would  have  been  sufficient  to  have  given 
you  perfect  security.  And  I  am  persuaded  the  incorporation  of  a 
part  of  the  negroes  would  rather  tend  to  secure  the  fidelity  of  others 
than  excite  discontent  mutiny  and  desertion  among  them.  The  force 
I  would  ask  for  this  purpose  in  addition  to  what  we  have  and  what 
may  probably  join  us  from  the  northward  or  from  the  militia  of  this 
State  would  be  four  regiments,  two  upon  the  Continental  and  two 
upon  the  State  establishment:  a  corps  of  pioneer  and  a  corps  of 
artificers  each  to  consist  of  about  eighty  men.  The  two  last  may  be 
either  on  a  temporary  or  permanent  establishment  as  may  be  most 
agreeable  to  the  State.  The  others  should  have  their  freedom,  and  be 
clothed  and  treated  in  all  respects  as  other  soldiers  without  which 
they  will  be  unfit  for  the  duties  expected  from  them." 

Such  a  suggestion  could  not  fail  to  arouse  great  opposi- 
tion. And  this  not  only  because  of  the  practical  confisca- 
tion of  property  which  it  implied ;  though  on  the  ground 
of  the  negro's  pecuniary  value  as  property  the  British 
government  had  failed  in  every  attempt  to  utilize  the 
negro  population  as  a  military  power.  When  Governor 
Rutledge  reached  Philadelphia  upon  his  escape  from  the 
State  in  1780,  he  reported,  it  is  related,  that  the  negroes 
offered  up  prayers  in  favor  of  England  in  the  hope  that 
she  would  give  them  a  chance  to  escape  from  slavery.    But 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  501 

the  British  officers,  regarding  negroes  as  valuable  spoil, 
defeated  every  plan  for  employing  them  as  soldiers  on  the 
side  of  England.!  The  planters,  of  course,  were  opposed 
to  a  measure  which  might  take  from  them  the  ablest  and 
most  intelligent  of  their  slaves.  But,  far  beyond  this, 
there  was  an  instinctive  repugnance  and  aversion  to  the 
idea  of  calling  upon  slaves  to  rescue  the  liberties  of  free- 
men. And  still  further  and  deeper  was  their  resentment 
at  the  proposition  that,  having  given  these  negroes  their 
freedom,  they  were  to  be  clothed  and  treated  in  all  respects 
as  other  soldiers.  This  suggestion  was  an  offence  to  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  army,  militia,  volunteer,  and  regular 
alike.  Indeed,  the  indignation  at  the  proposition,  we  are 
told,  increased  with  the  descent  in  the  grade  of  the  army. 
The  attempt  to  carry  out  the  scheme  would,  doubtless, 
have  ended  in  mutiny. 

The  proposition  was  not,  however,  rejected  absolutely 
by  Governor  Rutledge  and  the  Council  now  assembled  with 
him.  It  had  been  broached  in  the  Legislature  before,  and  as 
that  body  was  now  soon  to  assemble,  it  was  resolved  to 
submit  it  to  their  decision.^ 

It  having  been  arranged  between  Governor  Rutledge 
and  General  Greene  that  the  Legislature  should  be  assem- 
bled at  Jacksonborough,  a  small  village  on  the  southwest- 
ern bank  of  the  Edisto,  the  army  moved  from  the  Round 
O,  and  crossed  the  Edisto  on  the  16th  of  December,  taking 
position  at  the  plantation  of  Colonel  Skirving,  six  miles 
in  advance  of  Jacksonborough,  on  the  road  leading  to 
Charlestown.  In  order  to  secure  the  safety  of  the  Legisla- 
ture at  this  place,  it  became  necessary  to  guard  against  the 
detachment  on  John's  Island  under  Colonel  Craig.  From 
the  end  of  John's  Island,  that  is,  from  Wadmalaw  Sound, 
Jacksonborough  was  not  beyond  striking  distance,  as  upon 

1  Bancroft,  vol.  V,  413.         2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  275. 


602  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

a  full  tide  by  the  aid  of  their  galleys,  that  place  might  be 
approached  by  the  enemy,  while  the  communication  with 
Charles  town  by  James  Island  rendered  it  easy  to  throw 
reenforcements  upon  John's  Island  unperceived.  It  was 
important,  therefore,  to  drive  the  enemy  from  this  post. 
As  Lieutenant-Colonel  Laurens  was  personally  intimately 
acquainted  with  this  part  of  the  country,  not  only  from 
his  general  familiarity  with  this  section,  but  from  his  hav- 
ing been  here  engaged  under  Moultrie  in  resisting  Provost's 
invasion.  General  Greene  committed  to  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Lee  and  himself  the  subject  for  their  consideration.  It 
was  soon  ascertained,  not  only  that  the  island  was  accessi- 
ble, but  that  the  British  commander,  relying  on  his  galleys, 
was  quite  unapprehensive  of  an  attack. 

There  was  a  point  between  the  Stono  and  Edisto  at 
which  the  island,  or  peninsula,  more  properly  speaking, 
was  formerly  connected  to  the  high  land  by  a  piece  of 
marsh.  To  complete  the  inland  communication  between 
Charlestown  and  the  Edisto  by  way  of  the  Stono,  this 
marsh  had  been  cut  through,  and  the  canal  was  known 
as  the  New  Cut.  At  low  water  this  place  was  fordable, 
and  to  guard  the  pass  two  galleys  had  been  moored  at  con- 
venient distances,  but  necessarily  somewhat  remotely  sepa- 
rated in  order  to  prevent  their  grounding.  Laurens  and 
Lee  had  made  all  the  necessary  inquiries  before  the  army 
moved  from  the  Round  O.  And  these  two  enterprising 
young  commanders  now  solicited  permission  of  the  general 
to  attempt  the  passage  by  night  between  the  galleys  and 
the  surprise  of  the  British  detachment  under  Colonel 
Craig.  The  attempt  was  readily  sanctioned,  and  the 
night  of  the  13th  of  December  fixed  for  its  execution. 

The  main  army  moved  by  concert  on  the  12th  on  the 
route  to  Wallace's  bridge,  over  the  Caw  Caw  Swamp,  or 
river  on  the  road  to  Rantowles,  to  draw  the  attention  of  the 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  603 

enemy  from  the  real  point  of  attack,  while  the  two  light 
detachments  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Laurens,  cross- 
ing the  country  from  the  Ashley  River,  headed  the  north 
branch  of  the  Stono  on  the  night  of  the  13th,  and  advanced 
to  New  Cut,  which  is  at  the  head  of  the  south  branch. 
The  main  army,  intended  to  cover  and  support  the  light 
detachments,  had  halted  as  if  to  go  into  camp  for  the 
night,  but  was  put  again  in  motion  soon  after  dark ;  and 
the  general  in  person  reached  the  Cut  before  the  hour  of 
low  water,  at  which  alone  the  ford  was  passable.  Here 
he  found  the  attacking  party  in  a  strange  state  of  embar- 
rassment. The  detachments  of  Lee  and  Laurens  formed 
each  a  separate  column  on  the  march,  the  former  led  by 
Colonel  Lee  in  person,  the  latter  by  Major  Hamilton.^ 
Colonel  Laurens,  in  command  of  the  whole  as  the  senior 
officer,^  rode  with  Lee,  whose  column  was  in  the  advance. 
Hamilton's  had  not  moved  from  the  ground  precisely  at 
the  time  that  the  first  column  was  put  in  motion ;  but  no 
mistake  was  apprehended,  as  he  was  furnished  with  a  guide. 
Before  reaching  the  point,  however,  where  the  path  which 
led  to  the  ford  turned  off  from  the  road  they  were  upon, 
Hamilton's  guide  deserted  him;  the  silence  necessary  to 
be  observed  prevented  the  detachments  from  communicat- 
ing by  signals,  and  Hamilton  saw  now  no  resource  but 
hastening  on  in  the  hope  to  overtake  the  first  column.     In 

1  Major  James  Hamilton  of  Pennsylvania,  captain  First  Continental 
Infantry,  March  10  to  December  31,  1776;  captain  First  Pennsylvania, 
January  1, 1777,  taken  prisoner  at  Fort  Montgomeiy  October  6, 1777;  major 
Second  Pennsylvania,  December  10,  1778  (Historian),  had  just  arrived 
with  Pennsylvania  Line.  After  Revolution,  settled  in  South  Carolina,  and 
took  conspicuous  part  in  her  affairs  ;  was  the  father  of  the  famous  nullifi- 
cation governor,  James  Hamilton,  Jr. 

2  Colonel  Laurens,  it  will  be  recollected,  had  been  made  lieutenant- 
colonel  by  special  act  of  Congress  March  29,  1779.  Colonel  Lee's  com- 
mission was  not  issued  until  October,  1780. 


504  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

his  haste  he  passed  the  road  to  the  ford,  and  pushing  on 
with  redoubled  speed  as  the  hour  of  low  water  approached, 
he  so  increased  the  distance  from  the  first  column  that 
messengers  despatched  to  find  him  returned  in  despair.  In 
his  anxiety  to  reach  the  ford  Hamilton,  without  a  guide, 
had  attempted  a  short  route  across  the  fields,  which  failed 
him,  and  the  second  column  was  thus  entirely  lost. 

The  time  for  executing  the  enterprise  passed  by.  Colonel 
Lee,  who  had  crossed  over  to  the  island,  was  necessarily 
recalled  before  the  height  of  the  tide  should  cut  off  his 
retreat. 

But  the  object  could  not  be  relinquished  without  some 
effort  to  accomplish  it,  and  General  Greene  resolved  upon 
forcing  his  passage  into  the  island.  A  boat  was  procured, 
and  while  the  artillery  drove  their  galleys  from  a  station 
where  they  could  annoy  the  Americans,  Colonel  Laurens 
passed  over  the  Cut  and  penetrated  to  Craig's  encampment. 
But  the  alarm  occasioned  by  the  narrow  escape  of  the 
morning  had  demonstrated  to  the  enemy  the  insecurity  of 
his  situation,  and  Colonel  Laurens  found  the  island 
abandoned  by  all  but  a  few  stragglers,  who  were  made 
prisoners.  The  cattle  also  had  been  driven  across  the 
river  or  dispersed  in  the  woods.  The  main  object  had, 
however,  been  effected  without  loss,  and  the  enemy  had 
retreated  so  precipitately  that  the  schooner  which  con- 
tained their  baggage  and  one  hundred  invalids  was  very 
near  falling  into  Laurens's  hands.  General  Greene  in  his 
ofiicial  communication  indulged  in  his  usual  consolation : 
if  matters  had  all  gone  right  he  would  have  achieved  a 
great  victory.  "  Had  our  party  crossed  the  first  night," 
he  wrote,  "the  enterprise  would  have  been  completely 
successful.  The  enemy  had  between  four  to  five  hundred 
men  on  the  island,"  etc.  But  the  attacking  force  under 
Laurens    and    Lee    could    scarcely    have    exceeded    this 


IN  THE  KEVOLUTION  505 

number;  and  reenforcements  could  easily  have  been  sent 
to  Craig  from  James  Island.  The  most  that  can  be  said  is 
that  had  there  been  no  miscarriage  in  the  execution  of  the 
bold  enterprise,  itself  replete  with  difficulties,  there  was 
great  hope  of  a  successful  issue.  But  in  war  victory  is 
never  assured  until  achieved.  Had  the  whole  party 
crossed  the  Cut  without  misadventure,  some  later  accident 
might  have  alike  resulted  in  defeat. 

Johnson  has  been  followed  in  this  account  ^  in  preference 
to  Lee.  The  latter  wrote  evidently  from  recollection,  with- 
out official  documents,  for  he  is  mistaken  in  his  chronology 
as  well  as  in  other  matters  in  regard  to  the  expedition. 
He  writes  as  if  he  was  in  equal,  if  not  in  actual,  command 
with  Laurens.  Whatever  questions  there  may  have  been 
as  between  officers  in  the  Continental  establishment  and 
those  of  the  State,  there  could  be  none  between  those  in 
the  same  line.  Precedence  and  command  were  absolutely 
settled  by  seniority;  and  Laurens  was  Lee's  senior  as  a 
lieutenant-colonel  in  the  Continental  line  by  more  than  a 
year.  He  was,  as  Johnson  points  out,  present  with  Lee  in 
the  advance  because  he  was  in  the  command  of  the  whole. 
Lee  states  that  the  execution  of  the  enterprise  was 
appointed  for  the  28th  of  December,  and  represents  it  as 
taking  place  probably  on  that  night,  while  Johnson  asserts 
that  it  took  place  on  the  13th.  There  is  certainly  con- 
siderable difficulty  in  fixing  the  exact  date  of  this  adven- 
ture, but  that  Lee  is  mistaken  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
by  his  own  account  Captain  Armstrong  commanded  in  the 
expedition  a  squadron  of  the  cavalry  of  the  Legion.^ 
Whereas  the  semi-weekly  Royal  G-azette  of  Saturday, 
December  29,  1781,  to  Wednesday,  January  2,  1782, 
announces  the  capture  by  Major  Coffm  of  Captain  Arm- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  273-281. 

2  Meraoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  532. 


506  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

strong  at  Garden's  plantation  near  Dorchester  on  Sunday 
last,  to  wit,  the  30th,  which  affair,  again  by  Lee's  account, 
occurred  certainly  several  days  after  the  expedition  to 
John's  Island.  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Henry  Lee,  in  maintain- 
ing the  correctness  of  his  father's  statement,  publishes 
letters  of  General  Greene  to  Lee  upon  the  subject,  appar- 
ently dated  December  21st  and  28th ;  ^  but  the  latter  date 
is  probably  a  misprint  or  mistake  for  the  23d.  Upon  Lee's 
theory  there  would  scarcely  be  time  for  the  movements 
described  by  him  to  have  taken  place  before  the  established 
date  of  the  capture  of  Captain  Armstrong  by  the  contem- 
poraneous publication  of  The  Royal  G-azette. 

Johnson  observes  that  the  expedition  to  John's  Island 
concluded  the  campaign  of  1781;  but  it  did  not  do  so 
entirely,  for  the  affair  in  which  Armstrong  was  captured 
took  place,  as  we  have  just  seen,  before  the  end  of  the 
year.  After  the  expedition  to  John's  Island  was  over, 
Lee  returned  to  his  position  of  observation  on  the  Ashley. 
The  country  between  Dorchester  and  the  Quarter  House 
was  occasionally  visited  by  his  light  parties,  which  in- 
fringed upon  the  domain  claimed  by  the  sometime  British 
army  of  South  Carolina,  now  garrison  of  Charlestown.  A 
well-concerted  enterprise  was  projected  by  the  comman- 
dant to  repress  the  liberties  taken  by  Lee's  parties.  Major 
Coffin,  with  a  detachment  of  cavalry  composed  of  different 
corps,  was  detached  in  the  night  to  occupy  specified  points 
for  their  surprise.  It  so  happened  that  Captain  Armstrong 
of  the  Legion  cavalry  had  been  sent  to  Dorchester  by 
General  Greene  the  night  before,  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
ferring with  a  spy  from  Charlestown.  On  the  approach 
of  morning  Armstrong  advanced  to  Dorchester,  and  meet- 

1  Campaign  in  the  CaroUnas  (H.  Lee),  503-505.  We  may  also  observe 
that  the  letters  fail  to  establish,  as  Mr.  Lee  supposes,  that  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Lee,  the  junior,  commanded  his  senior,  Colonel  Laurens,  in  this  expedition. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  507 

ing  a  party  of  dragoons  sent  forward  for  the  purpose  of 
decoying  any  of  the  American  detachments  traversing  this 
quarter,  he  rushed  upon  it.  Armstrong,  it  was  said,  was 
one  of  the  most  gallant  of  the  brave,  too  apt  in  the  con- 
fidence he  reposed  in  his  sword  to  lose  sight  of  those  con- 
siderations which  prudence  suggested.  Eager  to  close 
with  his  flying  foe,  he  pursued  vehemently,  and  fell  into 
the  snare  spread  for  his  destruction.  The  moment  he  dis- 
covered his  condition  he  turned  upon  his  enemy  and  drove 
at  him  in  full  gallop.  The  bold  effort  succeeded  so  far  as 
to  open  a  partial  avenue  of  retreat,  which  was  seized  by  his 
subalterns  and  some  of  his  dragoons,  but  Armstrong  was 
taken  —  the  first  and  only  mounted  officer  of  the  Legion, 
it  was  said,  captured  during  this  war.  Lee  states  that  four 
privates  were  also  taken.  The  Royal  Grazette  says  that 
seven  rebels  were  killed  and  eight  taken  prisoners,  among 
whom  were  Captain  Armstrong  and  Richard  Ellis,  who 
formerly  kept  the  Quarter  House. ^  The  contemporaneous 
evidence  of  the  Gazette  is  again  preferable  to  the  recollec- 
tion of  Lee  after  many  years.  Thus  closed  the  military 
operations  of  the  year  1781. 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  638  ;  The  Boyal  Gazette,  Decem- 
ber 29,  1781,  to  January  2,  1782. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

1781 

It  will  be  recollected  that  upon  the  approach  of  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  in  February,  1780,  the  General  Assembly 
then  sitting  in  Charlestown  had  broken  up,  delegating 
"till  ten  days  after  their  next  session  to  the  Governor 
John  Rutledge,  Esquire,  and  such  of  his  Council  as  he 
could  conveniently  consult,  a  power  to  do  everything  nec- 
essary for  the  public  good,  except  the  taking  away  the  life 
of  a  citizen  without  a  legal  trial."  Before  the  investment 
of  the  town  had  been  completed,  the  governor  with  three  of 
his  Council,  Colonel  Charles  Pinckney,  Daniel  Huger,  and 
John  L.  Gervais,  had  gone  out  of  the  lines  so  as  to  avoid 
the  capture  of  the  whole  government  upon  the  fall  of  the 
town  then  impending.  Governor  Rutledge  proceeded  to 
Camden,  where  he  remained  for  some  days ;  then,  moving 
on  to  Colonel  Rugeley's,  he  just  escaped  Tarleton  when 
that  officer  rushed  to  Buford's  slaughter. 

The  capitulation  of  Charlestown,  involving,  as  it  did,  the 
capture  of  the  lieutenant  governor  and  of  almost  every 
other  person  connected  with  the  civil  government,  rendered 
it  of  vital  importance  that  Governor  Rutledge  and  the  three 
of  the  Council  who  had  gone  out  with  him  should  avoid 
any  possible  danger  of  falling  into  the  enemy's  hands.  Un- 
happily Colonel  Charles  Pinckney  and  Daniel  Huger  gave 
up  in  despair  and  accepted  royal  protection.  John  L. 
Gervais,  like   the   governor,  made  his  escape  into  North 

508 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  609 

Carolina.  The  governor,  upon  whose  freedom  now  so 
much  depended,  made  his  way  to  Philadelphia,  where  he 
exerted  himself  to  the  utmost  to  procure  men  and  supplies 
for  the  recovery  of  his  State.  He  appears  to  have  been  so 
engaged  there,  with,  however,  but  little  success,  during  the 
months  of  June,  July,  and  August,  1780.  In  September  he 
returned  to  the  South,  stopping  at  Hillsboro  in  North 
Carolina,  where  with  the  governor  of  that  State  he  was  con- 
certing measures  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  giving 
what  aid  he  could  to  General  Gates,  who  was  then  endeavor- 
ing to  reorganize  his  shattered  army.  Here  it  was,  as  has 
been  seen,  that  he  issued  his  first  commission  of  brigadier- 
general  to  Colonel  Williams,  which  he  recalled  at  the 
instance  of  the  delegation  from  Sumter's  men,  who  went  to 
him  for  the  purpose  of  protesting  against  the  appointment 
of  that  officer,  and  of  urging  the  promotion  of  Sumter. 
From  Hillsboro  he  issued  the  commissions  of  brigadier- 
general  to  Sumter  and  Marion,  putting  Sumter  in  com- 
mand of  all  the  militia  of  the  State,  and  placing  himself  in 
communication  with  these  officers,  supporting  and  sanction- 
ing their  efforts,  which  had  before  this  been  made  entirely 
upon  their  own  individual  responsibility  without  any 
governmental  authorization.  He  had  joined  Greene  when 
that  general  reached  Hillsboro  and  assumed  the  command 
of  the  Southern  Department,  with  him  had  moved  first  to 
Charlotte  and  thence  to  Cheraw,  when  Greene  established 
his  headquarters  near  that  place.  From  Cheraw,  in 
January,  1781,  Governor  Rutledge  found  means  of  opening 
communication  with  the  friends  of  the  American  cause  in 
Charlestown. 

Upon  the  advance  of  Lord  Cornwallis  in  January,  1781, 
into  North  Carolina,  the  governor  was  again  compelled 
to  fall  back  with  the  army  and  for  the  time  again  to 
abandon  the  State.     He  continued,  however,  with  General 


510  HISTOKY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

Greene  until  the  8th  of  March,  when  he  wrote  from  the 
camp  on  Haw  River,  sending  his  letter  by  General  Pickens 
to  Sumter,  whom  he  had  put  in  command  of  all  the  militia 
forces,  that  the  present  situation  of  affairs  rendering  it 
impracticable  for  him  to  return  immediately  into  South 
Carolina,  and  impossible  to  reestablish  civil  government 
there  for  some  time,  and  there  being  no  use  of  his  remaining 
with  the  army  there,  he  had  determined  to  proceed  again  to 
Philadelphia  to  attempt  to  procure  supplies  of  clothing  for 
the  militia,  and  to  obtain,  if  possible,  such  effectual  aid  as 
to  restore  both  Charlestown  and  the  country  to  their 
possession.  His  utmost  endeavors  for  these  purposes  should 
be  exerted,  and  he  flattered  himself  that  he  might  succeed 
by  personal  applications.  By  General  Pickens  and  Major 
Bowie,  returning  to  the  State,  the  governor  sent  three 
hundred  militia  commissions,  which  he  authorized  General 
Sumter  to  issue,  empowering  him  to  remove  ofiQcers  and 
to  appoint  others  in  the  place  of  the  removed.  In  North 
Carolina  he  procured  twenty-five  hundred  yards  of  woollens, 
which  he  sent  on  to  Sumter  for  the  use  of  the  militia.^ 
Thence  proceeding  by  the  way  of  Richmond,  Governor 
Rutledge  appears  to  have  reached  Philadelphia  in  May. 
There  he  was  engaged  in  pressing  upon  Congress  the 
necessities  of  the  South  till  the  latter  end  of  the  month, 
when  he  went  to  Washington's  headquarters  to  lay  before 
the  Commander-in-chief  the  condition  of  affairs  in  South 
Carolina.  To  Washington  he  represented  the  unhappy 
situation  of  the  suffering  soldiery,  the  prisoners  of  war  at 
Charlestown,  and  urged  that  measures  should  be  taken  for 
their  relief.  It  was  owing  to  his  importunities  probably 
that  General  Wayne  with  his  detachment  marched  from 
Yorktown,  Pennsylvania,  on  the  26th  of  May  ;  but  they 
were  detained  in  Virginia  and  did  not  reach  South  Carolina 
1  Sumter  MSS. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  511 

until  the  war  was  practically  over,  signalizing  themselves 
there  only  by  their  second  mutiny.  Governor  Rutledge,  on 
his  return,  brought  with  him  a  small  supply  of  medicines  and 
some  other  articles  which  he  had  procured  in  Philadelphia ; 
but  beyond  this  his  personal  applications  —  of  the  result  of 
which  he  was  so  hopeful  —  had  accomplished  nothing.  ^ 

Learning  of  Lord  Rawdon's  retreat  from  Camden,  his 
Excellency  returned  to  South  Carolina  and  on  the  1st  of 
August  arrived  at  General  Greene's  headquarters  on  the 
High  Hills  of  Santee.  After  conferring  with  the  general 
he  retired  to  Camden,  and  there  set  himself  at  work  reor- 
ganizing the  militia  and  the  State  troops  which  Sumter 
had  partly  embodied,  and  instituting  civil  government  over 
the  territory  recovered  from  the  enemy .^ 

Since  the  fall  of  Charlestown  there  had  been  really  no 
militia  in  the  State,  though  the  partisan  bands  were  usu- 
ally so  called;  for  a  militia,  as  we  have  had  occasion  to 
observe  before,  implies  the  existence  of  a  government 
under  which  the  citizens  are  enrolled  and  required  to  do 
duty.  But  since  his  Excellency's  departure  from  the  State 
there  had  been  no  government  except  that  of  the  British 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  Vol.  II,  247. 

2  By  the  terms  of  the  act  conferring  upon  Governor  Eutledge  dictatorial 
powers  they  were  to  be  exercised  in  concurrence  with  such  of  his  Council 
as  he  could  conveniently  consult.  The  members  of  the  Council,  it  may  be 
remembered,  were  Colonel  Charles  Pinckney,  Daniel  Huger,  John  Lewis 
Gervais,  Thomas  Ferguson,  David  Ramsay,  Richard  Hutson,  Roger  Smith, 
and  Benjamin  Cattell.  Major  James,  in  his  Memoirs^  states  that  at  this 
time  Governor  Rutledge  had  but  two  of  his  Council  with  him,  Daniel 
Huger  and  John  Lewis  Gervais  {Life  of  Marion,  143,  note).  He  must 
certainly  have  been  mistaken,  however,  in  regard  to  Daniel  Huger,  for  he 
had  taken  protection  and  had  avowed  himself  a  subject  of  his  Majesty. 
All  the  other  members  of  the  council,  with  the  exception  of  Smith  and 
Cattell,  had  been  exiles,  and  were  then  in  Philadelphia,  where  they  had 
been  sent  on  their  release  from  St.  Augustine.  Governor  Rutledge  writes 
to  Marion,  October  24,  1781,  "All  the  gentlemen  of  our  council  arrived 
yesterday."     {Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  196.) 


512  HISTORY   OP   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

authorities  under  the  protection  of  the  Royal  army.  Dur- 
ing the  four  months  of  June,  July,  August,  and  Septem- 
ber, 1780,  in  which  so  much  had  been  done  by  the  partisan 
bands  under  Sumter,  Marion,  Clarke,  and  Shelby,  there  had 
not  been  even  a  militia  commission  in  the  hands  of  these 
leaders.  Davie,  who  was  so  brilliantly  acting  with  them, 
had,  it  was  true,  a  commission  as  major  from  North  Caro- 
lina, and  Marion,  as  an  officer  in  the  Continental  line,  had 
also  one  in  that  service ;  but  these  commissions  as  such  were 
ignored,  and  their  authority  in  those  operations  was  derived 
only  from  their  followers.  These  bands  were  thus  purely 
volunteers  fighting  from  patriotism  only,  without  pay  or 
reward.  From  North  Carolina  Governor  Rutledge,  as  we 
have  said,  had  commissioned  first  Sumter,  and  then  Marion, 
and  later  Pickens,  as  brigadier-generals  of  militia,  and 
authorized  them  to  organize  their  followers  and  commis- 
sion their  officers  as  militia.  The  individual  spirit  of  such 
men  was  generally  of  the  highest  character,  as  their  ser- 
vices were  of  the  most  disinterested  patriotism.  But  the 
want  of  discipline  and  the  shifting  and  fluctuating  char- 
acter of  such  bodies  rendered  them  unreliable  for  the  per- 
sistent and  continued  operations  of  a  systematic  campaign. 
Greene's  pedantry  could  allow  him  to  see  nothing  beyond 
the  manifest  evils  of  the  system.  He  had  no  appreciation 
for  what  it  had  in  fact  accomplished,  notwithstanding  its 
admitted  defects.  To  meet  his  reiterated  complaints  upon 
the  subject,  Sumter,  with  his  approval,  had  inaugurated 
the  plan  of  raising  a  body  of  State  troops  —  neither  militia 
nor  Continental  —  to  serve  for  a  certain  definite  period  for 
pay  to  be  derived  from  the  spoils  taken  from  the  enemy. 

But,  as  might  have  been  expected,  the  system  did  not 
work  well ;  and  now  that  the  greater  portion  of  the  State 
had  been  recovered  from  the  enemy,  his  Excellency  the 
governor   devoted   himself   to   the   task  of   organizing  a 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  513 

more  regular  militia  and  of  improving  the  organization  of 
State  troops. 

The  nucleus  of  each  of  the  militia  regiments  was  the 
regimental  district  of  1779,  and  so  they  were  called  regi- 
ments, and  their  officers  lieutenant-colonels.  They  seldom, 
however,  numbered  more  in  action  than  from  one  hundred  to 
two  hundred  men  each,  and  were  changing  and  fluctuating 
bodies,  the  men  of  the  district  or  neighborhood  coming  and 
going  as  the  occasion  demanded  and  their  necessities  allowed 
or  their  caprice  suggested,  and  generally  expecting  to  be 
relieved  at  the  end  of  two  months,  the  limit  of  service 
required  by  the  old  militia  law.  The  commandant  when 
commissioned  was  a  lieutenant-colonel.  There  were  no 
colonels  in  the  Continental  line  after  the  expiration  of  the 
first  organizations,  for  this  reason.  In  the  British  army, 
then  as  now,  the  colonel  of  a  regiment  was  an  honorary 
officer  only  —  the  lieutenant-colonel  being  the  actual  com- 
mandant. Thus,  as  the  Prince  of  Wales,  now  King  Ed- 
ward VII.,  was  the  honorary  colonel  of  the  Life  Guards,  Sir 
William  Howe,  the  commander-in-chief  in  America  (1776- 
1778),  was  the  colonel  of  the  Twenty-third  Regiment,  of 
which  Nisbet  Balfour,  the  commandant  of  Charlestown, 
was  lieutenant-colonel,  and  Earl  Cornwallis  was  the  colo- 
nel of  the  Thirty-third,  of  which  James  Webster,  killed 
at  Guilford,  was  lieutenant-colonel.  As,  therefore,  the 
commanding  officer  of  a  British  regiment  in  the  field  was 
only  a  lieutenant-colonel,  it  became  important,  in  order 
to  facilitate  and  equalize  the  exchange  of  prisoners  taken, 
that  the  American  regimental  officer  should  have  only  the 
same  rank.  The  rule  adopted  in  the  Continental  line  was 
followed  in  the  State  service.^ 

1  From  letters  of  Governor  Rutledge  to  Generals  Sumter  and  Marion, 
dated  17th  of  September,  1781,  an  account  of  clothing  issued  to  Sumter's 
brigade  from  20th  of  April  to  8th  of  October,  1781  (Sumter  MSS.),  and 

VOL.  IV.  —  2  L 


514  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

By  the  "  act  for  the  more  effectual  defence  of  the  State  " 
of  1779,  the  whole  militia  had  been  divided  into  three 
classes,  one  of  which  was  required  to  hold  themselves  in 
readiness  to  march  to  such  place  as  they  should  be  ordered, 
to  do  duty  for  two  months  from  the  time  of  their  joining 
headquarters  or  arriving  at  the  place  of  their  destination, 
at  the  expiration  of  which  time  they  should  punctually  be 
relieved  by  another  class,  which  should  do  duty  for  two 
months,  and  at  the  expiration  of  their  time  they  should 
also  be  relieved  by  the  third  class,  who  should  serve  for 
the  like  term,  and  they  again  should  be  relieved  by  the 
first,  and  thus  every  class  should  do  equal  duty  in  rotation.^ 

Governor  Rutledge  now  proceeded  to  reorganize  the 
militia  under  this  law.  On  the  17th  of  September  he 
issued  instructions  to  the  brigadier-generals,  to  have  the 
regiments  fully  and  properly  officered,  mustered,  and  classed 
or  drafted,  as  soon  as  possible,  and  to  march  one-third  of 
them  with  the  utmost  expedition  to  headquarters,  or  such 
other  place  as  General  Greene  should  direct,  to  do  duty 
under  his  orders  for  two  months  from  the  time  of  their 
arrival.  He  enclosed  extracts  from  the  several  laws  as 
were  necessary  to  be  made  known  to  the  militia,  a  copy 
of  which  he  directed  to  be  furnished  to  each  colonel,  and 

from  other  sources  the  following  table  of  the  regiments  of  State  troops 
and  militia  has  been  compiled  :  — 

Sumter'' s  Brigade,  State  Troops :  (1)  Henry  Hampton's,  (2)  Wade 
Hampton's,  (3)  Mydelton's.  Militia:  (1)  Bratton's,  (2)  Lacey's, 
(3)  Winn's,  (4)  Taylor's,  (5)  Postell's,  afterwards  Kimball's,  (6)  Hill's. 

Marion's  Brigade,  State  Troops:  (1)  Peter  Horry's,  (2)  Maham's. 
3Iilitia :  (1)  Hugh  Horry's,  (2)  Baxter's,  (3)  McDonald's,  (4)  Richard- 
son's, (5)  Irwin's,  (6)  Benton's,  formerly  Kolb's,  (7)  Vanderhorst's,  for- 
merly Maybank's. 

Pickens's  Brigade,  Militia :  (1)  Harden's,  formerly  of  Marion's, 
(2)  Roebuck's,  (3) Brandon's,  (4)  Thomas's,  (5)  Anderson's,  (6)  Hayes's, 
(7)  Wilkinson's,  (8)  Samuel  Hammond's,  (9)  Le  Roy  Hammond's. 

1  Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  IV,  503. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  515 

ordered  to  be  read  at  the  head  of  his  regiment ;  a  copy  to 
be  taken  by  each  of  his  field  officers  and  captains.  He 
directed  the  brigadiers  to  appoint  the  most  proper  men  in 
their  brigades  for  officers,  and  to  have  the  laws  carried 
strictly  and  steadily  into  execution.  The  men  drafted 
were  directed  to  come  on  foot,  as  they  were  to  serve  as 
infantry,  and  their  horses  could  not  be  kept  in  camp,  nor 
could  any  drafted  men  be  spared  to  carry  them  back. 

But  how  were  the  provisions  of  the  act  of  1779  to 
be  enforced?  That  statute  provided  this  curious  and 
impracticable  scheme,  viz.,  that  every  person  who  should 
refuse  or  neglect  to  turn  out  properly  armed  and  accoutred 
when  drafted  should  forfeit  and  pay  a  sum  not  exceeding 
£500,  and  treble  his  last  tax,  to  be  sued  for  and  recovered 
in  a  summary  way  and  manner  by  a  court  composed  of 
three  commissioned  officers  and  four  privates  of  the  com- 
pany to  which  the  offender  belonged,  or  if  it  should  be 
impracticable  to  draw  the  privates  from  the  company, 
they  should  be  chosen  from  the  regiment.  The  privates 
forming  part  of  these  courts  were  not  to  be  selected  by 
officers,  but  drawn  nearly  in  the  manner  as  jurors  then 
were ;  the  names  of  each  private  in  the  company  or  regi- 
ment to  which  the  offender  belonged  was  to  be  written 
on  a  piece  of  paper  and  put  into  a  hat,  and  publicly  and 
fairly  drawn  out  by  a  commissioned  officer.  On  the 
non-payment  of  the  fine  imposed  by  such  a  court  the 
defaulter  was  obliged  to  serve  as  a  common  soldier  in 
one  of  the  Continental  regiments  raised  in  the  State,  for 
not  less  than  four  nor  more  than  twelve  months.^ 

With  the  singular  composition  of  these  courts  his  Ex- 
cellency does  not  appear  to  have  interfered,  though  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  supposed  that,  thus  constituted,  they  would 
have  been  very  effective  in  enforcing  the  drafts.  He 
^Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  IV,  465. 


616  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

did,  however,  in  the  exercise  of  his  plenary  powers,  dic- 
tate an  amendment  to  the  act  in  regard  to  the  currency 
in  which  the  penalties,  if  imposed,  should  be  paid.  Con- 
currently with  his  instruction  to  the  brigadiers  he  is- 
sued a  proclamation  suspending  the  resolves  and  acts 
of  the  Legislature  which  made  the  paper  currency  a  tender 
in  law,  in  payment  of  debts,  and  enclosing  a  copy  to  them, 
he  wrote :  — 

"  My  proclamation  of  this  date  "  (September  17,  1781)  "  suspends 
until  ten  days  after  the  next  meeting  and  sitting  of  the  General 
Assembly,  the  acts  which  make  Continental  and  State  money  a  tender 
in  law ;  all  fines  must  therefore  be  paid  in  specie,  it  is  necessary  to 
ascertain  to  what  amount  in  specie  the  court  may  fine.  In  1776  the 
militia  were  entitled  to  ten  shillings  current  money  a  day.  There 
was  at  that  time  no  difference  in  the  value  of  specie  and  paper 
money.  In  March,  1778,  the  pay  of  the  militia  continued  the  same, 
it  is  therefore  to  be  presumed  that  no  difference  had  taken  place 
between  paper  money  and  specie,  at  least  there  is  no  legislative 
acknowledgment  of  any  depreciation.  But  in  February,  1779,  the 
pay  of  militia  was  raised  from  IO5.  to  32s.  Qd.  per  day,  the  paper 
money  having  and  being  admitted  by  the  Legislature  to  be  depreciated 
in  that  proportion.  From  these  observations  we  may  fix  the  following 
rule  as  the  most  just  and  equitable  for  determining  how  far  the 
court  may  fine  in  specie.  For  fines  imposed  by  the  act  of  1778  to 
the  amounts  of  the  sums  mentioned  in  the  law.  Thus  £100  in 
specie  (according  to  the  current  rate  of  gold  or  silver)  for  £100  currency. 
But  for  fines  under  the  act  of  1779  they  must  not  exceed  in  specie 
the  sums  therein  mentioned  as  £150  specie  (according  to  the  old 
currency  rate  of  rate  of  gold  and  silver)  £500  currency." 

It  will  be  recollected  that,  in  order  to  complete  the 
quota  of  troops  to  be  raised  by  the  State  for  the  Conti- 
nental line,  the  degrading  condition  was  imposed  on  that 
service  that  vagrants  and  other  offenders  were  by  sentence 
of  court  impressed  in  the  regiment  of  that  line ;  his  Ex- 
cellency the  governor  after  thus  scaling  the  fines  to  be 
imposed  for  failure  to  perform  militia  duty,  ordered  also 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  617 

that  all  offenders  who  might  be  condemned  to  the  Conti- 
nental service  should  be  sent  under  guard  to  head- 
quarters.^ To  the  idle,  lewd,  and  vagrant  hitherto  forced 
into  the  Continental  service,  were  now  added  cowards 
and  deserters  from  the  militia. 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote  to  Marion,  forbidding  the 
practice  of  allowing  substitutes  for  militia  duty.  "The 
law,"  he  wrote,  "does  not  allow  any  man  the  privilege 
of  sending  substitutes,  nor  does  it  exempt  him  from  militia 
duty  by  paying  such  a  sum  as  an  officer  may  think  proper 
to  receive  either  in  lieu  of  personal  service,  to  find  a 
Continental  or  State  soldier,  or  for  any  other  purpose."  ^ 
In  subsequent  letters  he  directed,  however,  that  no  such 
arrangements  as  had  actually  been  made  should  be  dis- 
turbed, but  none  allowed  in  the  future.  His  intention 
was,  he  declared,  that  no  man  outside  of  Charlestown 
should  be  excused  from  militia  duty  under  a  pretence 
that  he  was  on  parole  or  a  British  subject,  unless  he  had 
been  fairly  taken  in  arms  and  paroled  as  an  officer.  To 
any  others  claiming  exemption  on  this  account  he 
directed  that  they  should  take  their  choice,  either  of 
doing  duty  or  going  into  the  enemy's  lines.  If  any  such 
refused  both  alternatives,  he  was  to  be  court-martialed 
and  fined. 

The  governor  also  writes:  "I  find  there  are  many 
gentlemen  riding  about  the  country  under  the  description 
of  volunteers  who  render  no  kind  of  service  to  it.  This 
practice  being  very  injurious  should  be  immediately 
suppressed;  and  no  man  is  to  be  excused  from  doing 
militia  duty  in  the  district  of  the  regiment  to  which  he 
belongs  unless  he  is  actually  enrolled  and  obliged  for 
some  certain  time  to  serve  in  some  regular  corps  of  cavalry, 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  1C4-165  ;  Sumter  MSS. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  174. 


618  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

not  merely  as  a  volunteer,  but  to  do  the  same  duty  and 
be  subject  to  the  articles  as  the  rest  of  the  corps  are 
obliged  to  do  or  are  subject  to."  ^ 

But  while  the  governor  was  engaged  thus  endeavoring 
to  restore  order  and  to  enforce  the  militia  law  of  the  State, 
the  absolute  necessity  of  finding  means  to  support  the 
army,  Continentals  as  well  as  militia,  was  forced  upon  him. 
Congress  neither  would  nor  could  do  anything  further 
than  to  permit  the  experiment  of  a  bank  to  be  tried. 
Mr.  Robert  Morris,  on  undertaking  the  management  of  the 
American  finances,  had  laid  before  Congress  the  plan  of 
a  national  bank,  the  capital  of  which  was  to  consist  of 
$400,000,  to  be  made  up  by  individual  subscription.  It 
was  to  be  incorporated  by  government,  and  subject  to  the 
inspection  of  the  superintendent  of  the  finances,  who  was 
at  all  times  to  have  access  to  the  books.  Their  notes  were 
to  be  receivable  as  specie  from  the  respective  States  into 
the  treasury  of  the  United  States.  The  plan  was  adopted 
by  Congress,^  and  was  for  a  time  at  least  a  partial  success. 
Colonel  Laurens's  mission  to  France  had  resulted  in  hasten- 
ing, if  not  actually  securing,  a  gift  from  Louis  XVL  of 
6,000,000  livres,  and  loans  amounting  to  14,000,000  more.^ 
From  these  sources  specie  made  its  appearance  in  circula- 
tion at  Philadelphia;  members  of  Congress  and  all  the 
retinue  of  attendants  at  the  seat  of  government  were  paid 
in  hard  money ;  a  general  exhilaration  was  produced ;  the 
financier  was  the  channel  through  which  all  flowed ;  and 
all  who  drank  at  the  fount  bestowed  on  it  a  benediction. 
But  the  stream  sank  in  the  sands,  as  it  was  said,  long 
before  it  reached  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  and  never 
reached  it  until  after  the  fall  of  Lord  Cornwallis ;  nor  for 

iGibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  179-180;  Sumter  MSS. 
2  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  IV,  458. 
«  Bancroft's  Mist,  of  the  U.  S.,  vol.  V,  469. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  519 

long  after,  except  indirectly  through  the  supplies  acquired 
by  conquest.  On  the  contrary,  the  only  fund  in  the  mili- 
tary chest  was  ordered  to  be  withdrawn  from  it.  There  was 
a  balance  on  hand  of  certain  bills  drawn  upon  Dr.  Franklin, 
about  $300,000  in  amount,  and  which  by  the  resolves  of 
Congress  were  among  the  funds  placed  at  the  disposal  of 
the  financier.  Marshall,  indeed,  relates  that,  in  order  to 
compel  the  Southern  army  to  the  utmost  exertion  to  sup- 
port itself  without  drawing  supplies  from  the  general  gov- 
ernment, Mr.  Morris  employed  an  agent  to  attend  the  army 
as  a  volunteer,  whose  powers  were  unknown  to  General 
Greene.  This  agent  was  instructed  to  watch  the  situation, 
and  only  to  furnish  assistance  when  it  appeared  impossible 
for  the  general  to  extricate  himself  from  his  embarrass- 
ments ;  and  then,  upon  his  pledging  the  faith  of  the  gov- 
ernment for  repayment,  to  furnish  him  with  a  draft  on  the 
financier,  for  such  a  sum  as  would  relieve  the  urgency  of 
the  moment.^  The  sale  of  drafts  on  the  government  thus 
niggardly  doled  out,  and  of  shares  on  Mr.  Morris's  bank, 
were  the  only  means  allowed  for  the  support  of  the  army 
in  South  Carolina. 2 

Governor  Rutledge  had  attempted  during  his  journey 
from  Philadelphia  to  interest  the  people  in  the  country  in 
the  support  of  Mr.  Morris's  bank,  and  by  the  sale  of  shares 
to  raise  some  money  for  the  support  of  the  army ;  but  his 
route  was  through  a  tract  of  country  where  the  inhabitants 
were  little  acquainted  with  commerce,  and  therefore  not 
likely  to  become  adventurers  in  a  measure  of  that  sort. 
But  whether  it  was  owing  to  objections  to  this  particular 
scheme  or  to  all  projects  of  the  kind,  it  is  certain  that  not 
a  single  subscriber  could  be  found  nor  a  shilling  of  money 
raised.      Upon  his  arrival   at   Greene's   headquarters   he 

1  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  IV,  657-558. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  202. 


520  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

found  the  imperative  necessity  of  adopting  some  other 
scheme  of  raising  money ;  and  it  was  at  this  time  that  he 
resolved  to  impress  for  State  service  a  quantity  of  indigo, 
which  article  at  that  time  the  middle  country  chiefly  culti- 
vated for  market.  Occupying  but  small  space  when  raised, 
it  had  been  hid  away,  and  conveyed  to  market  occasionally 
as  opportunities  offered.  As  these  were  neither  frequent 
nor  safe,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  the  article  then  in  the 
country.  Governor  Rutledge  caused  the  indigo  impressed 
by  him  to  be  conveyed  in  wagons  to  Philadelphia,  where  it 
was  sold.  This  was  the  first  substantial  supply,  not  of 
cash,  but  the  means  of  raising  its  equivalent,  the  army  had 
had  since  General  Greene  had  been  in  command.  By 
borrowing  a  portion  of  it  for  the  use  of  his  officers,  he 
was  enabled  to  restore  them  to  comparative  decency  and 
comfort.^ 

Colonel  Lee  was  never  content  with  a  share  only  of 
spoils  or  supplies.  It  will  be  remembered  the  offence  he 
had  given  to  Marion  on  the  subject  of  captured  horses, 
and  to  Sumter  at  the  capture  of  Granby,  by  appropriating 
to  his  Legion  the  best  clothing  found  in  the  fort.  This 
had  been  his  course  throughout  his  service  in  South  Caro- 
lina, nor  could  he  now  refrain  from  helping  himself  from 
this  source  of  revenue  which  Governor  Rutledge's  action 
had  developed.  Without  waiting  on  the  slow  process  of 
an  equitable  division  of  supplies  from  this  quarter.  Colonel 
Lee  directed  his  legionary  quartermaster  to  secure  a 
[)ortion  of  the  indigo  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  his  corps. 
He,  however,  took  the  precaution  of  apprising  General 
Greene  of  the  measure,  with  a  hope,  doubtless,  of  securing 
in  advance  his  sanction  or  of  averting  his  interdict.  But 
the  general,  perceiving  at  once  the  danger  at  this  time  of 
such  action,  and  receiving  an  intimation  from  Governor 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  205. 


IN   THE   EE VOLUTION  521 

Rutledge  of  his  disapproval  of  it,  thereupon  at  once  wrote 
to  Colonel  Lee  :  — 

"  Your  order  to  Mr.  Lewis  to  procure  a  quantity  of  indigo  for  the 
purpose  of  procuring  clothing  for  your  Legion  I  have  found  necessary 
to  countermand,  having  got  a  hint  that  it  would  be  thought  derogatory 
to  the  government  for  individuals  to  take  a  measure  of  that  sort  with- 
out the  order  of  the  Governor,  who,  I  believe,  is  perfectly  disposed  to 
give  every  aid  and  support  to  the  army  in  his  power."  ^ 

A  subject  which  gave  Governor  Rutledge  great  concern 
at  this  time  was  that  in  regard  to  the  wisest  and  best  course 
to  be  pursued  in  regard  to  the  Tories.  He  writes  to  Gen- 
eral Marion :  "  I  have  been  very  much  puzzled  about  a 
proclamation  to  offer  pardon  to  the  Tories.  I  have  how- 
ever determined,  upon  the  whole,  to  issue  one  with  certain 
exceptions.  It  is  enclosed ;  be  pleased  to  have  it  properly 
circulated."  ^  As  this  proclamation,  which  bore  date  27th 
of  September,  1781,  formed  the  basis  of  the  action  of  the 
General  Assembly  which  met  soon  after,  in  regard  to  the 
treatment  of  the  Royalists,^  it  is  well  here  to  give  an 
analysis  of  it. 

The  proclamation  recited  the  advantages  gained  by  the 
forces  of  the  United  States,  which  had  compelled  the  troops 
of  his  Britannic  Majesty  to  surrender  or  evacuate  the  strong 
posts  which  they  held  in  the  Up-Country,  and  to  retreat 
to  the  vicinity  of  Charlestown ;  the  inability  of  the  enemy 
to  give  the  protection  and  support  they  had  promised  to 
their  adherents  who  had  taken  up  arms  with  them,  com- 
pelling many  to  conceal  themselves  in  secret  places  to 

1  Campaigns  in  the  CaroUnas  (H,  Lee),  452,  and  Appendix,  XV. 

2  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  175. 

3  "I  nmst  first  observe  that  G r  R 's  proclamation  of  the  27th 

of  September,  1781,  was  the  fountain  from  whence  sprung  some  of  those 
bitter  laws,  and  the  forfeitures  and  disabilities  above  mentioned."  — An 
address.  To  the  Freemen  of  the  State  of  South  Carolina^  "Cassius,"  Janu- 
ary 14,  1783,  Pamphlets^  Charleston  Library,  6th  series,  vol.  II. 


522  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

avoid  the  effects  of  just  resentment;  Balfour's  order,  by 
which  the  wives  and  families  of  the  friends  of  America 
were  sent  beyond  the  sea,  and  the  governor's  retaliatory 
order  sending  the  wives  and  families  of  those  who  had 
adhered  to  the  British  within  their  lines ;  the  representa- 
tions to  him  that  many  who  had  been  induced  by  vain 
expectations  and  delusive  hopes  were  now  anxious  to 
return  to  their  allegiance  and  to  use  their  utmost  exertions 
to  support  American  independence,  —  on  duly  weighing  and 
considering  which  his  Excellency  had  thought  fit,  by  and 
with  the  advice  of  his  Privy  Council,  to  issue  this  procla- 
mation, offering  to  all  persons  who  had  borne  arms  with 
the  enemy,  who  had  till  then  adhered  to  them,  or  who  were 
concealing  themselves,  a  full  and  free  pardon  and  oblivion 
upon  the  condition  that  such  persons  should,  within  thirty 
days  from  the  date  of  the  proclamation,  surrender  them- 
selves to  a  brigadier  of  the  militia  of  the  State  and  en- 
gage to  perform  constant  duty  as  privates  for  six  months 
next  ensuing  the  time  of  such  surrender;  and  that  they 
actually  perform  such  duty.  To  the  wives  and  children 
of  such  persons  he  offered,  upon  their  husbands  or 
parents  complying  with  this  condition,  permission  to  re- 
turn to  their  homes  and  to  hold  and  enjoy  their  property 
in  the  State  without  molestation  or  interruption.  He  pro- 
vided, however,  that  if  such  persons  should  desert  from 
the  militia  service  within  the  time  limited,  their  families 
should  be  immediately  sent  into  the  enemy's  lines,  and 
neither  they  nor  their  husbands  or  parents  suffered  to  re- 
turn to  or  reside  in  the  State.  This  liberal  offer  was,  how- 
ever, qualified  by  the  following  exceptions,  in  which  cases 
the  persons  were  excluded  from  its  benefit. 

1.  All  persons  who,  having  gone  over  to  or  joined  the 
enemy,  had  failed  to  avail  themselves  of  the  provisions  of 
the  two  several  proclamations  of  his  Excellency  the  gov- 


IK   THE   REVOLUTION  623 

ernor,  to  surrender  themselves  to  a  magistrate  within  forty 
days  after  the  respective  date  of  those  proclamations 
issued  in  pursuance  of  an  ordinance  of  February  20, 
1779,  entitled  "  An  ordinance  to  prevent  persons  with- 
drawing from  the  defence  of  the  State  to  join  the 
enemies  thereof."^ 

2.  All  persons  who  had  been  sent  off  or  obliged  to  quit 
the  State  for  refusing  to  take  the  oath  required  of  them  by 
law,  who  have  returned  to  the  country .^ 

3.  All  those  who  subscribed  a  congratulatory  address 
bearing  date  on  or  about  the  5th  day  of  June,  1780,  to 
General  Sir  Henry  Clinton  and  Vice-Admiral  Arbuthnot, 
or  another  address  bearing  date  on  or  about  the  19th 
day  of  September,  1780,  to  Lieutenant-General  Earl  Corn- 
wallis. 

4.  All  such  as  at  the  time  held  any  commission,  civil  or 
military,  under  the  British  government,  and  were  then 
with  the  enemy. 

5.  All  those  whose  conduct  had  been  so  infamous  as 
that  they  could  not  (consistently  with  justice  or  policy) 
be  admitted  to  partake  of  the  privileges  of  America ;  not- 
withstanding which  last-mentioned  exception,  such  persons 
as  should  be  deemed  inadmissible  to  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  citizens  should  not  be  detained  as  prisoners,  but 
should  have  full  and  free  liberty  and  a  pass  or  permit  to 
return. 

The  proclamation  of  his  Excellency  concluded  with  this 
appeal  :  — 

"  At  a  juncture  when  the  force  of  the  enemy  in  this  State,  though 
lately  considerable,  is  nearly  reduced  by  the  many  defeats  which 
they  have  suffered,  and  particularly  in  the  late  important  action  at 
Eutaw,  when  they  are  dispossessed  of  every  post  except  Charles  Town 
garrison  ;  When  this  formidable  fleet  of  his  most  Christian  Majesty 

1  Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  IV,  479.  2  jn^,^  vol.  I,  147  j  vol.  IV,  450. 


524  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

in  Chesapeake  Bay  and  the  combined  armies  of  the  King  of  France 
and  of  the  United  States  under  the  command  of  his  Excellency  Gen. 
Washington  in  Virginia  afford  a  well  grounded  hope  that  by  the  joint 
effort  of  these  armies  this  campaign  will  be  happily  terminated  and 
the  British  power  in  every  part  of  the  Confederated  States  soon  totally 
annihilated  :  It  is  conceived  that  the  true  and  real  motive  of  the  offer 
here  made  will  be  acknowledged ;  it  must  be  allowed  to  proceed  not 
from  timidity  (to  which  they  affect  to  attribute  every  act  of  clem- 
ency and  mercy  on  our  part)  but  from  a  wish  to  impress  with  a  sense 
of  their  error  and  reclaim  misguided  subjects,  and  give  them  once 
more  an  opportunity  of  becoming  valuable  members  of  the  community 
instead  of  banishing  them,  or  forever  cutting  them  off  from  it;  for 
even  the  most  disaffected  cannot  suppose  that  the  brave  and  deter- 
mined freemen  of  the  State  have  any  dread  of  their  arms.  With  the 
persons  to  whom  pardon  is  thus  offered  the  choice  still  remains  either 
to  return  to  their  allegiance  and  with  their  families  to  be  restored  to 
the  favor  of  their  country  and  to  their  possessions  or  to  abandon  their 
properties  in  this  State  forever  and  go  with  their  wives  and  children 
whither  and  for  what  purpose  or  whom  to  depend  or  how  to  submit 
they  know  not,  most  probably  to  experience  in  some  strange  and  dis- 
tant land  all  the  miseries  and  horrors  of  beggary  sickness  and  despair. 
This  alternative  is  now  for  the  last  time  submitted  to  their  judgment. 
It  will  never  be  renewed  I  " 

The  terms  of  this  proclamation  were  not  only  regarded 
as  harsh  and  ungenerous  by  those  to  whom  they  were 
offered,  but  were  severely  criticised  by  the  stanchest  of 
Whigs.  In  the  address,  To  the  Freemen  of  the  State  of 
South  Carolina^  over  the  signature  of  "  Cassius,"  pub- 
lished the  14th  of  January,  1783,  to  which  we  have  referred, 
the  writer  says :  — 

"  The  proclamation  of  September  27  as  observed  before  went  on  the 
Governor's  idea  that  the  great  body  of  the  people  who  had  taken  pro- 
tection had  thereby  forfeited  their  lives  liberty  and  property.  He 
takes  upon  him  to  offer  pardon  to  every  one  who  should  join  our 
standard  in  30  days  and  serve  6  months  in  the  militia  as  common 
soldiers  excepting  from  the  benefit  those  who  were  banished  the  State 
in  the  beginning  of  the  troubles  ;  the  congratulators,  and  such  as  held 
commissions  civil  or  military  on  the  27  September  or  were  then  with. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  525 

the  enemy.  I  shall  say  nothing  of  the  good  or  bad  policy  of  excluding 
such  a  number  of  citizens  as  this  exception  comprehended,  admitting 
he  had  the  power  he  pretended.  However  on  the  17th  of  November 
he  issued  a  second  proclamation  extending  the  benefits  held  out  by  the 
former  under  like  terms. 

"As  the  capture  of  Cornwallis  and  his  army  was  known  to  the 
Governor  when  this  proclamation  came  out ;  as  the  British  troops 
had  absolutely  lost  their  courage  with  the  loss  at  Eutaw  and  the 
Pennsylvania  Line  was  on  the  march  from  York  Town  to  our  assist- 
ance ;  when  this  and  the  state  the  country  was  in  at  that  juncture  is 
considered  I  leave  the  reader  to  judge  whether  the  proclamation  was 
not  calculated  rather  for  creating  mischief  than  for  raising  a  force. 
For  it  laid  all  who  neglected  or  refused  not  only  under  a  stigma  and 
reproach,  but  under  such  disabilities  as  degraded  them  below  the  rank 
of  freemen. 

"  Obliging  the  whole  country  that  had  taken  protection  to  turn  out 
and  serve  six  months  in  the  militia  was  the  greatest  oppression  imagi- 
nable ;  and  the  contriver  of  it  well  knew  those  who  now  drive  down 
the  measure,  that  it  was  commanding  what  was  absolutely  impossible. 
Men  are  generally  so  embarrassed  with  inconveniences  of  one  sort  or 
another  that  there  is  no  society  on  earth  the  aggregate  body  whereof 
could  all  quit  their  families  or  homes  for  six  months.  In  our  case  not 
to  mention  how  much  agriculture  would  suffer  by  such  emigration 
the  heads  of  those  families  who  resided  within  the  enemy's  range 
were  peculiarly  circumstanced.  They  were  no  doubt  called  on  by  the 
feelings  of  fathers,  husbands,  or  protectors  to  stay  and  afford  the 
feeble  protection  they  could  to  their  families  or  avert  the  distress 
or  ruin  that  would  ensue  if  they  joined  our  army  which  at  that  time 
had  not  the  power  of  protecting  them. 

"Ordering  them  out  therefore  without  regard  to  local  situation, 
sickness  or  other  distress  was  an  extravagant  act  of  power.  Whether 
they  resided  within  or  out  of  the  enemy's  garrison  or  guards,  whether 
a  man's  wife  or  little  ones  or  the  property  the  British  had  left  him 
unplundered  were  in  or  out  of  the  enemy's  reach  ;  all  this  was  nothing ; 
they  must  abandon  the  whole  to  the  rage  of  an  unprincipled,  revenge- 
ful enemy,  and  sally  forth  like  Don  Quixote  setting  British  guards  and 
parties  at  defiance  in  quest  of  adventures  on  the  report  of  a  proclama- 
tion; and  what  perhaps  was  more  mortifying  they  must  humble 
themselves  and  supplicate  for  money  as  criminals  at  the  feet  of  a  man 
who  a  little  before  was  a  fellow  citizen  no  more  than  on  a  footing  with 
themselves. 


626  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

"  I  conjure  any  sensible  honest  man  to  tell  me  if  this  was  acting 
the  part  of  a  magistrate  framing  regulations  for  the  ease  and  conven- 
ience of  a  people  over  whose  happiness  he  was  appointed  to  preside," 
etc.i 

In  many  instances,  the  case  was  indeed  a  hard  one. 
There  were  those  who  upon  the  fall  of  Charlestown  and  the 
abandonment  of  the  State  by  Congress  and  its  forces  had 
no  choice  but  to  remain  subject  to  the  conqueror's  power. 
Domestic  affairs  forbade  their  leaving  their  homes  and 
families.  "  The  State,"  Cassius  reminded  his  Excellency, 
"  soon  after  the  reduction  of  Charlestown  may  be  strictly 
said  to  have  been  conquered.  Not  only  the  capital,  but 
every  post  throughout  the  country  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy.  The  governor,  who  represented  the  sovereignty  of 
the  State,  had  provided  for  his  safety  by  flight,  and  all  the 
Continental  troops  in  South  Carolina  were  either  killed, 
taken,  or  routed."  But  there  were  those  who  could  not, 
like  his  Excellency,  avoid  the  power  of  the  enemy  by 
flight,  and  was  he  now,  upon  his  return  after  more  than  a 
year's  absence,  from  behind  an  army  which  might  yet 
vanish,  as  twice  already  had  happened,  and  with  it  himself, 
to  require  them  to  risk  the  vengeance,  upon  themselves 
and  their  families,  of  the  enemy  in  whose  power  they 
actually  were  ?  In  this  very  proclamation  his  Excellency 
was  directing  that  the  families  of  all  who  would  not  join 
him  and  who  were  within  his  own  lines  should  be  com- 
pelled to  go  into  the  enemy's.  If  they  came  out,  would  not 
the  enemy  follow  his  example  and  send  their  families  out  of 
their  lines  ;  and  if  so,  how  were  they  to  be  supported  while 
they  were  serving  for  six  months  in  the  militia?  True, 
by  another  order  the  governor  had  called  out  all  the  militia 
of  the  State  to  serve  in  three  terms  of  duty  of  two  months 
each.  But  besides  the  inequality  of  the  service  required  in 
1  Pamphlets^  Charleston  Library,  5th  Series,  vol.  II, 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  627 

the  two  cases,  the  militiaman  could  avoid  serving  by  the 
payment  of  his  fine,  which  his  Excellency  had  scaled  down 
to  the  lowest  point.  The  option  to  him,  therefore,  was  not 
an  arduous  one  ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  man  within  the 
enemy's  lines  the  alternative  was  the  abandonment  of  his 
family  under  the  most  distressing  circumstances,  or  the 
forfeiture  of  his  citizenship.  On  the  other  hand,  the  con- 
sideration that  some  great  difference  should  be  made 
between  those  who  had  stood  faithfully  by  the  State  in  the 
hour  of  adversity,  and  those  who,  from  whatever  motive 
or  under  whatever  influences,  honorable  or  otherwise,  had 
sat  quietly  down  under  the  protection  of  the  enemy's 
power  during  its  continuance,  could  not  be  ignored.  The 
question  was  a  difficult  one,  and  it  was  rendered  still  more 
so  by  the  notorious  fact  that  many  —  very  many  —  had 
wavered,  from  time  to  time,  from  side  to  side. 

General  Sumter  appears  to  have  been  particularly 
charged  with  the  duty  of  receiving  the  submissions  of  the 
Loyalists  under  this  proclamation  and  of  incorporating  them 
with  his  command. 1  Several  hundreds  came  out  of  the 
British  lines  under  the  terms  of  the  proclamation  and 
joined  the  American  militia.  Many  made  their  excuses 
for  remaining  with  the  British  on  account  of  the  situation 
of  their  families ;  others,  who  had  taken  British  militia 
commissions,  explained  their  conduct  that  they  had  done 
so  at  the  request  of  their  neighbors  to  save  them  from 
having  officers  put  over  them  who  would  have  abused  and 
ill-treated  them.  General  Moultrie  asserts  that  it  was 
within  his  knowledge  that  several  gentlemen  took  British 
militia  commissions  to  protect  their  friends  and  neighbors 
from  insult.2 

His  Excellency  the  governor  next  turned  his  attention 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  302;  Sumter  MSS. 

2  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  303-304. 


528  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  the  reestablishment  of  civil  government;  and  his  first 
step  in  this  direction  was  the  appointment  of  ordinaries 
throughout  the  State  to  administer  estates,  a  measure  of 
pressing  necessity,  from  the  number  of  citizens  who  had 
fallen  in  the  last  two  years.^ 

By  the  constitution  adopted  19th  of  March,  1778,  elec- 
tions for  members  of  the  Senate  were  to  have  been  held 
on  the  last  Monday  in  November  of  that  year  and  the 
day  following,  and  on  the  same  days  of  every  second  year 
thereafter,  and  for  Representatives  in  the  House  on  those 
days  in  that  year,  and  on  the  same  days  in  every  second 
year  thereafter.^  Three  years  had  now  passed  without  an 
election,  and  Governer  Rutledge  determined  now  to  pro- 
vide for  one,  and  as  he  was  authorized  by  the  constitution, 
should  the  casualties  of  war  or  contagious  disorders  render 
it  unsafe  for  the  General  Assembly  to  meet  at  the  seat  of 
government,  to  appoint  a  more  secure  and  convenient  place 
of  meeting.  For  the  reason  already  mentioned  he  decided 
to  call  this  Assembly  at  Jacksonborough. 

As  a  matter  of  detail,  he  was  at  a  loss  for  the  want  of 
forms  for  writs  of  election,  as  well  as  of  other  forms  of  pro- 
cedure and  to  procure  these  he  despatched  a  letter  by  a 
trusted  negro  named  Antigua,  belonging  to  the  estate  of 
Mr.  John  Harleston,  deceased,  who  rendered  him  the  most 
important  services  of  this  character,  to  one  of  the  friends  of 
the  cause  in  Charlestown,  to  obtain  them.  The  negro  was 
captured  with  the  letter  of  the  governor  and  another  to 
a  different  person,  and  the  letters  were  published  in  full 
conspicuously,  for  several  issues  in  The  Royal  Grazette.^ 
Antigua,  however,  soon  escaped,  for  by  the  time  the  British 
were  publishing  the  letter,  taken  from  him  some  weeks 

1  Sumter  MSS. 

2  Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  I,  139-140. 

3  The  Bo]ial  Gazette,  October  31,  1781. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  529 

before,  we  find  the  governor  sending  by  him  to  Mr.  Ravenel 
a  slave  which  had  been  improperly  taken  from  him.^  The 
form  of  writs  having  been  obtained,  his  Excellency  on  the 
23d  of  November  addressed  letters  to  the  brigadier-gener- 
als, enclosing  writs  of  election,  which  they  were  instructed 
to  have  properly  filled  up  and  issued.  The  character  of 
these  instructions  and  the  governor's  conduct  in  regard 
thereto  will  be  considered  in  the  next  chapter.  In  this  it 
will  only  be  observed  that  one  of  the  packets  of  writs  was 
sent  to  General  Barnwell. 

It  was  the  misfortune  of  the  State  at  this  time  to  lose 
the  services  of  both  General  Sumter  and  Colonel  Harden. 
The  orders  in  regard  to  the  election  were  issued  to  General 
Sumter,  and  his  last  service  was  in  extending  them ;  but 
Colonel  Harden  had  already  been  superseded  and  had 
resigned.  Governor  Rutledge,  considering  that  the  part 
of  Marion's  command  which  extended  from  Charlestown 
to  the  Savannah  too  remote  from  Marion's  scenes  of  oper- 
ation, had  determined  to  constitute  a  new  brigade  in  that 
quarter.  Hitherto  Marion  had  confided  that  region  to 
Colonel  Harden,  and  never  had  service  been  more  ably 
performed.  But  Governor  Rutledge  thought  Major  John 
Barnwell,  though  lower  in  grade  as  a  militia  ofBcer,  a  more 
proper  person  for  the  position  of  brigadier  than  Harden, 
and  appointed  him  to  command.  Major  Barnwell  had 
been  one  of  the  officers  of  the  three  first  regiments  raised 
by  the  Provincial  Congress  in  1775.  He  had  served  for  a 
while  with  his  regiment  in  the  Continental  line,  but  had 
resigned,  and  subsequently  had  become  major  in  Colonel 
Garden's  militia  regiment,  and  as  such  had  been  captured 
at  the  fall  of  Charlestown  and  was  one  of  those  confined 
on  the  prison  ships  in  the  harbor;  he  had  thus  seen  but 
little  active  service  in  the  field,  while  Colonel  Harden  had 
1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  p.  197. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2  m 


530  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

greatly  distinguished  himself  as  a  partisan  leader,  and  had 
been  practically  in  command  of  the  territory  now  made 
into  a  new  brigade  district  since  the  May  previous.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  may  have  been  urged  with  some  force 
that  Major  Barnwell  ranked  Harden  at  the  time  of  the 
fall  of  Charlestown,  Harden  being  then  but  a  captain,  and 
that  he  should  not  be  made  to  lose  his  relative  rank  be- 
cause of  his  having  been  included  in  the  surrender  of  the 
city  —  that  while  Harden  had  been  enjoying  the  opportu- 
nity of  distinguishing  himself,  he  had  for  the  sake  of  the 
State  been  enduring  the  horrors  of  the  prison  ship.  Colonel 
Harden  immediately  resigned  his  commission  on  being 
superseded,  and  the  public  lost  his  services ;  not  only  so, 
but  the  appointment  gave  such  offence  to  the  officers  and 
men  who  had  served  under  him  that  they  refused  to  serve 
under  General  Barnwell,  so  that  he  could  do  nothing  and 
finally  resigned. 

General  Sumter's  resignation  could  have  excited  no 
surprise.  It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  it  was  acceptable 
to  General  Greene,  though  his  letters  to  Sumter  himself  are 
of  a  very  different  tenor.  Indeed,  the  contemporary  corre- 
spondence discloses  a  great  want  of  candor,  at  least  upon 
Greene's  part.  The  immediate  cause  of  Sumter's  determi- 
nation was  the  action  of  Governor  Rutledge  in  regard  to 
the  State  troops  and  militia  which  formed  his  command, 
but  which  action  was  at  General  Greene's  own  sugges- 
tion. 

The  letters  of  his  Excellency  of  the  17th  of  September 
upon  the  reorganization  of  the  militia,  addressed  to  Gen- 
erals Sumter  and  Marion,  were  almost  identical  in  terms. 
They  each  contained  a  clause  directing  that  the  drafted 
men  should  come  on  foot,  as  they  were  to  do  duty  as 
infantry,  and  their  horses  could  not  be  kept  in  camp  nor 
could  any  men  be  spared   to   carry  them  home.     But   a 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  631 

difference  was  made  in  carrying  out  this  order.  At  General 
Greene's  suggestion  it  was  relaxed  in  favor  of  Marion's 
men.  Then  Sumter  was  ordered  to  detach  Wade  Hamp- 
ton's regiment  for  service  in  Georgia,  and  his  command 
was  further  diminished  by  the  reductions  of  his  regiments 
of  State  troops.  Colonel  Lee,  whether  by  flattery  or  other- 
wise, had  doubtless  obtained  and  exercised  a  great  ascend- 
ency upon  the  mind  of  the  General-in-chief ;  or,  as  expressed 
by  the  author  of  the  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas^  "  the  mind 
of  that  hero  was  often  indebted  to  him  for  original  sugges- 
tions or  acceptable  advice."  Unfortunately  General  Sum- 
ter had  somehow,  but  the  reason  for  which  nowhere 
appears,  incurred  the  enmity  of  Lee  soon  after  General 
Greene's  return  to  South  Carolina,  and  from  that  time 
Lee's  influence  was  constantly  exerted  to  Sumter's  preju- 
dice.^ There  can  be  no  doubt,  too,  that  General  Greene 
encouraged,  if  he  did  not  invite.  Colonel  Lee's  criticisms. 
Thus  he  writes  to  Lee,  immediately  after  the  defeat  at 
Hobkirk's  Hill :  "  General  Sumter  has  got  but  few  men. 
He  has  taken  the  field  and  is  pushing  after  little  parties 
of  Tories  towards  Ninety  Six.  Major  Hyrne  is  gone  to  him 
if  possible  to  get  him  to  join  us.  But  this  I  know  he  will 
avoid  if  he  can  with  decency.''''  ^  And  Lee  consoles  him 
for  his  defeat  at  Hobkirk's  Hill  with  the  remark  that 
^^  nobody  was  to  blame  but  G-eneral  Sumter.^''  Again,  on  the 
9th  of  May,  writing  to  Lee  in  cipher,  evidently  in  reply  to 
some  criticisms  in  regard  to  Sumter,  he  says  :  "  I  perceive 
that  312  [Marion]  is  not  satisfied  and  I  think  you  are  not 
mistaken  respecting  311  [Sumter].  However  be  careful, 
be  prudent,  and  above  all  attentive :  this  with  men  as  well 
as  with  ladies  goes  a  great  way."  ^  On  the  29th  of  July 
Greene  writes  to  Lee :  "  I  have  already  recommended  to 

^  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  290. 


632  HISTOEY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

General  Sumter  to  form  all  the  State  troops  into  two 
Regiments.  I  wish  it  was  practicable  to  get  the  State 
troops  to  join  the  army ;  hut  he  assured  it  would  prove  so 
fully  my  opinion  of  a  certain  person  to  give  such  an  order 
as  not  to  prevent  further  exertion  hut  even  opposition  and 
it  is  uncertain  how  far  disappointed  amhition  may  carry  a 
man.''^  On  the  20th  of  August  Colonel  Lee,  writing  to 
General  Greene,  recommending  that  the  State  troops  be 
taken  from  Sumter  and  put  under  Henderson,  uses  the 
language  we  have  before  quoted :  "  General  Sumpter  is 
hecome  almost  universally  odious  as  far  as  I  can  discover. 
I  lament  that  a  man  of  his  turn  was  ever  useful  or  heing 
once  deservingly  great  shoidd  want  the  wisdom  necessary  to 
continue  so  and  preserve  his  reputation.^''  ^ 

Indulging  in  such  an  injudicious,  if  not  absolutely  im- 
proper, correspondence  with  one  of  his  officers  in  regard  to 
another,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  at  length  his  views  in 
regard  to  Sumter  should  be  impressed  upon  his  Excellency 
the  governor,  and  that  he  should  at  last  procure  in  this 
way  the  reduction  of  Sumter's  command,  and  the  dis- 
mounting of  his  men,  while  Marion's  were  to  retain 
their  horses.  But  how  diiferent  is  the  tenor  of  the  fol- 
lowing letter  from  what  should  be  expected  under  the 
circumstances  ?  On  the  15th  of  December  General  Greene 
writes  in  this  strain  to  Sumter :  ^  — 

"  I  was  persuaded  you  would  meet  with  difficulty  in  reducing  your 
battalions  and  in  dismounting  them,  but  the  good  of  the  service  re- 
quires you  should  persevere  in  both.  It  is  true  the  public  have 
neglected  them  but  what  have  they  had  it  in  their  power  to  do? 
Poverty  and  want  stare  us  in  the  face  on  every  side.  But  never  mind 
little  difficulties,  we  have  gone  through  greater  and  I  persuade  myself  we 
shall  be  happy  at  the  last,  and  your  country  if  they  have  any  justice  and 

1  Campaigns  in  the  Carolinas  (Lee),  436. 

2  Ibid.,  450. 

3  Sumter  letters,  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  132. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  533 

gratitude  will  not  fail  to  bless  and  reward  you  for  your  exertions  made  in 
the  darkest  hours  they  ever  felt.  I  shall  always  hear  testimony  to  your 
firmness,  and  don't  fail  to  tell  the  people  how  much  you  did  when  others 
hid  their  heads." 

How  could  General  Greene  reconcile  this  letter  to 
Sumter  with  that  to  Lee  of  the  29th  of  July,  in  which  he 
referred  to  his  opinion  of  the  former  as  well  known  to  his 
correspondent  to  be  of  a  derogatory  character  ? 

Sumter  appears  to  have  written  with  indignation  to 
Governor  Rutledge  upon  the  subject  of  the  treatment  of 
his  command,  for  in  a  letter  of  the  25th  of  December,  1781, 
his  Excellency  replies ;  "  I  do  not  understand  the  passage 
of  your  letter  which  says  'the  State  brigade  is  too  little 
the  object  of  public  attention  &  in  various  cases  ludicrously 
treated.'  I  am  not  conscious  of  having  treated  any  man 
or  body  of  men  ludicrously  nor  do  I  know  what  attention 
government  could  or  should  have  paid  which  it  has  not 
to  that  brigade.  My  orders  to  all  the  Brigadiers  of  mili- 
tia with  respect  to  the  tours  of  duty  are  in  the  same  terms ; 
nor  do  I  know  of  any  other  difference  in  the  mode  of  your 
brigade  &  any  other  doing  duty  except  that  my  instruc- 
tions which  at  General  Greene's  particular  recommenda- 
tion directed  the  several  draughts  to  come  on  foot  instead 
of  coming  on  horseback  to  camp  was  altered  by  General 
Greene's  recommendation  as  to  General  Marion's  bri- 
gade." 1 

Sumter's  State  brigade  was  reduced  to  two  regiments, 
one  of  cavalry  under  Colonel  Wade  Hampton,  the  other 
of  infantry  under  Colonel  Mydelton ;  and  that  under 
Hampton  was  detached  from  his  command.  Colonel 
Henry  Hampton,  who  had  been  with  Sumter  from  the 
commencement  of  his  command  and  had  so  distinguished 
himself,  was  put  out  of  commission  ;  thereupon,  on  the  4th 
1  Sumter  MSS. 


634  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  January,  1782,  Sumter  wrote  to  General  Greene  from 
Orangeburgh:  "In  my  last  I  took  the  liberty  to  request 
permission  to  withdraw  from  this  place  upon  private  busi- 
ness, or  rather  to  prepare  to  attend  the  Assembly.  I  hope 
to  be  indulged,  and  beg  not  to  be  honored  again  with  your 
commands  until  a  proper  inquiry  can  be  made  whether  I 
am  worthy  of  them."  ^ 

Soon  after  the  Jacksonborough  Assembly  met,  General 
Sumter  resigned  his  commission  and  Colonel  Henderson 
was  appointed  brigadier-general  to  succeed  him.  Colonel 
Lacey  appears  to  have  remained  in  command  of  his  militia 
regimen  ts.2 

The  cabal  of  Greene  and  Lee  had  at  last  succeeded  in 
driving  from  the  field  the  man  who  had  been  the  first  to 
stem  the  tide  of  conquest  in  South  Carolina,  and  whose 
exertions  had  rendered  their  subsequent  careers  in  the 
State  possible. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  303 ;  Sumter  letters,  Year  Book 
City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  70. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  303  ;  Sumter  MSS. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

1781 

Gloomy,  indeed,  had  been  the  prospect  of  the  American 
cause  when  the  year  1781  began.  The  resolution  of  Con- 
gress had  called  for  an  army  of  thirty-seven  thousand  men 
to  be  in  camp  by  the  1st  of  January.  At  no  time  during 
the  campaign  of  this  year  in  the  Southern  Department, 
that  is  from  Pennsylvania  to  Georgia  inclusive,  until  the 
coming  of  the  French  fleet  and  Washington's  movement  to 
the  South,  did  the  regular  force  amount  to  three  thousand 
effective  men.  In  the  Northern  Department,  from  New 
Jersey  to  New  Hampshire  inclusive,  as  late  as  the  month 
of  April  it  did  not  reach  six  thousand.^  In  both  depart- 
ments the  Continental  troops  were  in  a  state  of  destitution. 
In  the  Northern  destitution  resulted  in  mutiny.  On  the 
night  of  the  1st  of  January  the  discontent  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania line  broke  out  in  open  and  almost  universal  revolt. 
On  a  signal  given,  the  great  body  of  non-commissioned 
officers  and  privates  paraded  under  arms,  and  marched  for 
Philadelphia  to  obtain  redress  from  Congress.  The  muti- 
neers kept  the  field  for  two  weeks,  when  they  were  met  at 
Trenton  by  a  committee  of  Congress  and  President  Reed 
of  Pennsylvania,  with  a  part  of  his  executive  council,  and 
a  compromise  was  come  to  on  the  15th,  a  result  which,  as 
we  shall  see,  emboldened  them  to  repeat  the  experiment 
when  sent  to  South  Carolina  the  next  year.     The  success 

[  iMarshairs  Life  of  Washington  vol.  IV,  445,  446. 

636 


536  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  the  Pennsylvania  line  inspired  a  part  of  that  of  Jersey, 
many  of  whom  were  foreigners,  with  the  hope  of  obtaining 
similar  advantages,  and  stimulated  them  to  a  like  attempt. 
On  the  night  of  the  20th  a  part  of  the  Jersey  brigade  rose 
in  arms,  making  precisely  the  same  claims  which  had  been 
yielded  to  the  Pennsylvanians.  But  this  second  mutiny 
was  speedily  crushed.^ 

In  the  meanwhile  Virginia  had  been  invaded  by  a  British 
force  under  the  traitor  Arnold.  Landing  at  Westover  on 
the  Jam.es  on  the  4th  of  January,  Arnold  had  marched 
upon  Richmond,  at  which  place  and  in  its  neighborhood 
he  had  destroyed  a  large  quantity  of  stores,  public  and 
private,  had  burnt  founderies,  mills,  magazines,  and  other 
buildings. 

So  it  was  that  the  battle  of  Cowpens  was  fought  and 
won  in  South  Carolina  while  the  Northern  army  was  in 
mutiny  and  Virginia  overrun  and  pillaged  by  Arnold. 
Then  had  followed  the  renewed  advance  of  Lord  Cornwallis 
into  North  Carolina,  which  caused  the  abandonment  of 
this  State  by  Greene.  For  three  months.  South  Carolina 
was  again  left  to  struggle  with  her  fate,  unaided  and  alone, 
against  a  British  force  of  more  than  four  thousand  men 
remaining  within  her  borders  after  Cornwallis  had  left  it 
with  his  army.  Colonel  Lee,  with  his  Legion,  which,  after 
a  leisurely  march,  had  arrived  in  January,  had  at  once 
been  despatched  to  operate  with  Marion,  whom  he  joined 
on  the  23d,  and  with  him  had  taken  part  in  the  attempt 
on  Georgetown.  He  had  been  recalled  and  had  followed 
the  rest  of  Greene's  army  into  North  Carolina.  But  the 
war  had  not  ceased  in  South  Carolina,  though  the  State 
was  abandoned  by  the  Continental  army.  Sumter  and 
Marion  had  at  once  renewed  the  system  of  warfare  upon 
the  British  posts  by  which  they  had  accomplished  so  much 
1  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  vol.  IV,  393-405. 


IK  THE   REVOLUTION  537 

the  year  before.  Parties  of  Marion's  men  under  the 
Postells  had  made  their  successful  raids  upon  Wadboo 
and  Monck's  Corner.  Marion  himself  had  fallen  upon 
and  driven  McLeroth  through  the  Halfway  Swamp;  had 
met  and  fought  Watson  at  Wiboo,  Mount  Hope,  and 
Black  River,  and  finally  had  driven  him  into  Georgetown. 
Then  turning  upon  Doyle,  who  had,  during  his  absence, 
destroyed  his  stores  at  Snow  Island,  Marion  had  attacked 
him  at  Witherspoon's  Ferry,  defeated,  and  pursued  him. 
Sumter,  though  really  unfit  for  service  by  reason  of  his 
wound,  had  again  taken  the  field,  and,  gathering  his  men 
at  their  old  camping  ground  on  the  Waxhaws,  by  a  rapid  and 
circuitous  march  to  the  western  side  of  the  Congaree,  had 
appeared  before  Granby  and  laid  siege  to  that  post  in  the 
rear  both  of  Rawdon  at  Camden,  and  of  Cruger  at  Ninety 
Six,  and  after  destroying  a  quantity  of  stores  and  supplies, 
had  only  raised  the  siege  upon  the  approach  of  Lord 
Rawdon  with  his  whole  force.  Then  hastening  to  the 
British  post  at  Thomson's  plantation  in  Orangeburgh,  he 
had  fallen  upon  and  captured  a  large  convoy,  taking 
prisoners  all  the  party  who  were  not  killed,  and  had 
carried  off  the  stores,  which  he  unfortunately  soon  after 
lost  by  the  treachery  of  a  guide.  Still  more  brilliant  and 
successful  was  Harden,  whom  Marion  had  despatched 
across  the  country  to  carry  the  war  back  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Charlestown  itself  —  to  its  south  and  west.  In  a 
week  he  had  four  times  attacked  the  British  successfully 
at  Four  Holes,  Barton's  Post,  Pocotaligo,  in  Colleton,  and 
Fort  Balfour,  in  Beaufort,  and  a  few  days  after  had  fought 
Browne  at  Wiggins's  Hill  in  what  is  now  Barnwell  County. 
Pickens,  too,  who  had  returned  from  Greene,  with  whom  he 
had  served  in  North  Carolina,  had  fallen  upon  Dunlap  and 
his  party  at  Beattie's  Mill  in  Ninety  Six  and  destroyed  them ; 
Hammond,  one  of  his  officers,  a  few  days  after  capturing 


538 


HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 


a  company  at  Horner's  Corner  in  Edgefield.  During 
Greene's  absence,  the  South  Carolina  volunteer  partisan 
bands  had  fought  the  British  forces  in  the  following 
affairs :  — 


In 

American 

British 

What  is  Now 

Commanders 

Commandbrs 

1 

Wadboo  (or  Watboo) 

Berkeley  Co. 

Jan.  24 

Postell,  James 

2 

Monck's  Corner 

Berkeley  Co. 

Jan.  24 

Postell,  John 

8 

Halfway  Swamp 

Clarendon  Co. 

Feb. 

Marion 

McLeroth 

4 

Fort  Granby 

Lexington  Co. 

Feb.  19 

Sumter 

Maxwell 

6 

Thomson's  Plantation 

Orangeburgh  Co. 

Feb.  23 

Sumter 

British  officer 

6 

Wright's    Bluff    (Fort 

Watson) 

Clarendon  Co. 

Feb.  27 

Sumter 

Watson 

7 

Mud  Lick 

Newberry  Co. 

March  2 

Roebuck 

8 

Lynch's  Creek 

Kershaw  Co. 

March  6 

Sumter 

Eraser 

9 

Wiboo  Swamp 

Clarendon  Co. 

March 

Marion 

Watson 

10 

Mount  Hope 

Williamsburg  Co. 

March 

Marion 

Watson 

11 

Black  Kiver 

Williamsburg  Co. 

March 

Marion 

Watson 

12 

Samplt 

Georgetown  Co. 

March 

Marion 

Watson 

13 

Snow  Island 

Marion  Co. 

March 

Marion 

Doyle 

14 

Witherspoon's  Ferry 

Georgetown  Co. 

March 

Marion 

Doyle 

15 

Dutchman's  Creek 

Fairfield  Co. 

March 

Grey 

16 

Beattie's  Mill 

Abbeville  Co. 

March  24 

Pickens 

Dunlap 

17 

Four  Holes 

Colleton  Co. 

April  7 

Harden 

A  captain 

18 

Barton's  Post 

Colleton  Co. 

April  8 

Harden 

Barton 

19 

Pocotaligo  Koad 

Colleton  Co. 

April  8 

Harden 

Fenwick 

20 

Fort  Balfour 

Beaufort  Co. 

April  13 

Harden 

Fenwick 

21 

Wiggins's  Hill 

Barnwell  Co. 

April 

Harden 

Browne 

22 

Horner's  Corner 

Edgefield  Co. 

AprU 

Hammond 

A  captain 

23 

Hammond's  Mill 

Edgefield  Co. 

April 

Hammond 

It  was  indeed  a  glorious  struggle  which  had  thus  been 
maintained  by  her  own  people  in  South  Carolina  while  the 
Continental  army  was  absent  from  the  State.  Sumter's  in- 
vestment of  Granby  had  required  the  movement  of  Lord 
Rawdon's  force  from  Camden  to  dislodge  him ;  and  when 
dislodged  it  had  only  been  to  enable  him  to  attack  the  still 
more  interior  posts  at  Orangeburgh  and  Wright's  Bluff, 
while  Marion  had  kept  McLeroth,  Watson,  and  Doyle  all 
busy  in  his  lordship's  rear.     This  was  the  condition  of 


IN  THE  BEVOLUTION  639 

affairs  in  South  Carolina  which  Wade  Hampton,  sent  by 
Sumter,  reported  to  Greene  the  day  after  the  battle  of 
Guilford  Court-house.  When  therefore  Cornwallis,  though 
victorious  in  that  battle,  had  been  compelled  to  fall  back 
before  Greene  to  Cross  Creek,  and  thence  had  turned  aside 
and  moved  towards  Wilmington,  Greene,  upon  reaching 
Ramsay's  Mill  on  Deep  River,  had  had  to  decide  whether  to 
follow  Cornwallis,  or  to  return  to  South  Carolina.  Wade 
Hampton  was  with  him  to  tell  how  the  Whigs  in  that 
State,  without  assistance  from  any  source,  had  kept  up  the 
war  and  broken  up  Lord  Rawdon's  communications,  and 
was  there  to  support  Colonel  Lee  in  urging  the  march  upon 
Lord  Rawdon  at  Camden  rather  than  upon  Lord  Corn- 
wallis at  Wilmington. 

General  Greene,  as  it  has  appeared,  never  giving  himself 
heartily  to  the  move,  but  always  hankering  after  the  rejected 
alternative,  returned  to  South  Carolina  and  fought,  again 
unsuccessfully,  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill.  His  defeat  he, 
as  usual,  attributed  to  the  failure  of  others.  This  time  it 
was  upon  Colonel  Gunby  of  Maryland  that  the  blame  of 
the  immediate  disaster  was  thrown ;  but  Sumter  was  held 
equally  responsible  because  he  did  not  have  one  thousand 
men  in  the  field  by  the  18th  of  April,  as  Greene  alleged 
he  had  engaged  to  do.  In  this,  as  it  has  been  shown,  Greene 
was  mistaken,  nor  could  anything  have  been  more  unrea- 
sonable on  his  part  than  to  suppose  that  Sumter,  without 
the  vestige  of  a  government  in  his  support,  could  have 
undertaken  to  bring  into  the  field  one  thousand  volunteers 
under  his  immediate  command,  besides  five  hundred  under 
Marion,  and  another  party  under  Pickens,  when  the  great 
States  of  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Caro- 
lina, and  Delaware,  with  established  governments  also 
in  full  operation,  could  not  altogether  furnish  three  thous- 
and men;   nor  could  the  Northern  States  furnish  Wash- 


640  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ington  himself  with  six  thousand.  Dissatisfied  with  the 
first  result  of  his  move  into  South  Carolina,  General  Greene 
was  on  the  point  of  again  abandoning  the  State,  and  taking 
off  with  him  the  remains  of  the  Continental  army  when 
Lord  Rawdon,  notwithstanding  his  victory  at  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
evacuated  Camden  and  fell  back  beyond  the  Congaree,  a 
retrogression  from  which  the  British  forces  never  recovered. 
To  whom  then  is  the  credit  of  the  great  result  due  ? 

It  will  readily  be  conceded  that,  however  heroic  and 
efficient  the  efforts  of  the  partisan  bands,  the  contest  with 
the  four  thousand  British  troops  in  the  State  could  not  long 
have  been  maintained  had  not  Greene  returned  with  his 
Continental  army ;  but  it  must  as  readily  be  granted  that 
Lord  Rawdon  had  not  abandoned  Camden  because  of  his 
fear  of  Greene,  whom  he  had  so  easily  and  so  thoroughly 
beaten.  His  lordship  declares  that  he  had  always  reprobated 
the  post  as  being  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  river.  But  unless 
now  moved  by  some  new  consideration,  why  had  he  not  at 
once  abandoned  it  as  soon  as  left  in  command,  upon  the 
advance  of  Lord  Cornwallis  in  January  ?  It  was,  doubt- 
less, owing  first  to  the  fact  that  Sumter  and  Marion  had 
demonstrated  the  correctness  of  his  theory  as  to  the  position 
at  Camden  because  of  the  length  and  vulnerableness  of  its 
line  of  communication,  and  their  full  understanding  of  the 
situation,  and  determination  to  avail  themselves  of  it,  that 
had  compelled  Rawdon  seriously  to  contemplate  the  neces- 
sity of  its  abandonment.  As  long  as  there  was  no  or- 
ganized force  in  his  front,  he  was  enabled  by  the  activity 
of  such  good  officers  as  Watson,  McLeroth,  and  Doyle  to 
protect  in  a  measure  the  convoy  of  his  supplies.  The  pres- 
ence of  Greene  with  his  Continental  force,  however  small, 
as  a  menace  to  his  front,  required  that  these  officers  should 
join  him,  and  in  doing  so  to  expose  his  communications. 
It  was,  therefore,  primarily,  the  action  of  Sumter  and  Marion, 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  641 

and  secondarily,  the  return  of  Greene,  which  caused  Lord 
Rawdon  to  abandon  Camden  and  with  it  a  large  part  of  the 
State. 

General  Greene,  in  his  letter  to  Washington  of  the  29th 
of  March,  giving  his  reasons  for  the  move  into  South  Caro- 
lina, had  observed  that  by  doing  so  the  enemy  would  be 
obliged  to  follow  him  or  give  up  his  posts  in  South  Caro- 
lina. That  if  the  enemy  followed  him,  it  would  draw  the 
war  out  of  North  Carolina  and  give  that  State  an  oppor- 
tunity to  raise  its  proportion  of  men.  That  if  they  left 
their  posts  in  South  Carolina  to  fall,  they  must  lose  more 
than  they  would  gain  in  North  Carolina.  That  if  he  con- 
tinued in  North  Carolina,  the  enemy  would  hold  their 
possessions  in  both.^  Those  were  certainly  weighty  consid- 
erations in  the  last  days  of  March  ;  but  had  they  not  been 
as  urgent  in  the  January  before  ?  In  describing  the  advan- 
tages of  the  position  he  had  taken  at  Cheraw  in  December, 
Greene  had  pointed  out  in  his  correspondence  that  Lord 
Cornwallis  could  not  move  towards  Virginia  and  leave 
Morgan  behind  him  on  one  side,  and  himself  upon  the  other. 
That  if  he  did  so  he  would  have  the  whole  country  open  to 
him,  with  nothing  to  obstruct  his  march  to  Charlestown. 
Such  a  march,  however,  he  did  not  contemplate,  because  it 
would  be  putting  it  in  the  power  of  the  enemy  to  compel 
him  to  fight  without  choosing  his  ground.  Cornwallis 
had,  nevertheless,  advanced  into  North  Carolina,  re- 
gardless of  Greene's  position  at  Cheraw,  and  abandoning 
entirely  the  supposed  advantages  of  that  position,  Greene 
had  with  great  difficulty  been  able  to  unite  with  Morgan, 
even  though  Morgan  had  defeated  Tarleton  at  Cowpens. 
In  contemplating  such  an  advance  by  Cornwallis,  he  had 
declared  that  the  only  objection  to  his  own  move  upon 
Charlestown  would  be  that  the  enemy  might  force  him  to 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  37. 


642  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

battle.  But  this  Cornwallis  had  done  in  North  Carolina, 
at  Guilford  Court-house,  and  now  upon  his  return  one  of 
the  conditions  of  the  problem  was  the  necessity  of  attack- 
ing Lord  Rawdon  on  his  own  chosen  field.  Would  not, 
therefore,  every  condition  have  been  better  fulfilled  had 
General  Greene,  instead  of  following  Lord  Cornwallis  in 
the  first  instance,  pursued  the  plan  then  contemplated  by 
him,  but  rejected,  of  advancing  upon  Charlestown,  anticipat- 
ing the  battle  of  Eutaw  by  eight  months.  Surely  if  he  felt 
himself  strong  enough  to  attack  Rawdon  after  his  heavy 
losses  at  Guilford,  he  should  have  considered  himself  strong 
enough  to  meet  him  before  his  own  army  was  so  weakened. 
And  if  ultimately  successful  at  Eutaw,  notwithstanding  his 
losses,  not  only  at  Guilford,  but  at  Hobkirk's  Hill  and 
Ninety  Six,  and  that  against  the  enemy  reenforced  by  three 
fresh  regiments,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  if  the 
move  was  wise  in  March,  it  would  have  been  wiser  in  Janu- 
ary ?  And  that  if  the  movement  had  taken  place  then,  with 
Sumter  and  Marion's  assistance,  he  might  have  recovered 
the  State  months  before,  or  have  compelled  Cornwallis 
to  return  to  South  Carolina  and  leave  Washington  with 
Rochambeau  to  deal  with  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

The  evacuation  of  Camden  on  the  10th  of  May  had  been 
followed  by  a  series  of  brilliant  successes.  Sumter  took 
the  post  at  Orangeburgh  with  its  garrison  on  the  11th.  Fort 
Motte  surrendered  to  Marion  and  Lee  on  the  12th,  and  Fort 
Granby  to  Lee  on  the  15th.  Lord  Rawdon,  crossing  the 
Santee  at  Nelson's  Ferry,  had  been  met  by  Colonel  Balfour 
with  the  report  that  the  whole  country  was  in  revolt,  and 
Charlestown  in  no  condition  to  stand  a  siege,  as  the  old 
works  had  been  levelled  for  new  ones  which  had  not  yet 
been  constructed ;  within  the  lines  of  the  town  the  Royal 
militia  had  mutinied  and  had  been  disarmed,  but  were 
ready  to  seize  the  gates  of  the  town  if  Greene  should  ap- 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  643 

pear.  Without  a  full  knowledge  of  all  these  details  Sum- 
ter had  perceived  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  combined 
movement  for  which  Greene  had  before  been  so  anxious. 
The  British  morale  had  been  completely  broken,  and  the 
country  was  ready  to  rise  against  them.  But  Greene,  in- 
stead of  summoning  to  him  Marion  and  Lee,  and  acting 
upon  Sumter's  advice,  turned  back  to  besiege  Augusta  and 
Ninety  Six,  and  let  the  opportunity  slip  from  his  grasp. 
Orders  had  been  issued  for  the  evacuation  of  both  of  these 
places  by  the  British  garrisons ;  and  then  evacuation  had 
only  been  prevented  by  the  capture  of  the  messengers. 
While  sitting  down  before  Ninety  Six  Greene  had  learned 
of  the  arrival  of  reenforcements  in  Charlestown,  and  these 
were  soon  on  the  way  to  raise  his  siege.  The  ebb  of  the 
tide  of  British  power  had  been  stayed ;  and  the  tide  now 
turned  again  upon  him.  Lord  Rawdon  reappeared  with 
fresh  troops.  The  siege  of  Ninety  Six,  after  great  loss  to 
the  Americans,  was  abandoned,  and  Greene  was  soon  in 
full  retreat  before  the  returning  foe. 

All  the  country  below  the  great  rivers  which  had  been 
recovered  had  been  again  lost,  and  Greene  was  making  his 
way  for  the  settlement  known  as  the  Catawba  Nation,  in 
what  is  now  York  County,  just  across  from  Lancaster, — that 
is,  the  neighborhood  in  which  Sumter  had  first  rallied  and 
formed  his  bands  for  recovering  the  State  the  year  before,  — 
when  it  was  learned  that  Rawdon  had  abandoned  Ninety 
Six  and  was  endeavoring  to  form  a  junction  with  Stuart 
at  Orangeburgh.  Upon  this  Greene  had  returned,  and 
again  resumed  the  offensive,  hoping  to  cross  the  Congaree 
before  this  junction  could  be  made,  and  to  strike  one  or  the 
other  of  the  parties  which  should  first  come  up.  But  in 
this  he  had  failed.  Rawdon,  Stuart,  and  Cruger  united  at 
Orangeburgh,  and  Greene,  with  his  Continental  army, 
retired  to  the  High  Hills  of  San  tee  for  repose. 


544  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Then  it  was  that  Sumter  had  been  permitted  to  carry- 
out  his  plan  of  again  assailing  the  enemy's  post  in  his  rear. 
While  Pickens  watched  the  Tories  at  Ninety  Six,  and 
Harden  with  Hayne  approached  from  the  lower  part  of  the 
State,  with  Marion,  and  with  Lee,  who  was  assigned  to  his 
command  for  the  occasion,  Sumter  had  made  the  splendid 
raid  by  which  the  British  posts  from  the  Santee  to  Charles- 
town  itself  had  all  been  assailed  and  carried,  Hayne, 
Hampton,  and  Lee  each  successively  striking  within  five 
miles  of  the  town  itself,  carrying  the  war  back  to  its  very 
gates,  and  exciting  terror  within  its  lines.  The  incursions 
of  Sumter  and  Marion  in  the  winter,  during  the  absence 
of  Greene,  again  renewed  with  increased  vigor  upon  the 
return  of  the  Continental  army,  had  caused  the  evacuation 
of  Camden  and  the  abandonment  of  the  country  north  and 
east  of  the  Congaree ;  this  vigorous  movement  of  the 
South  Carolina  troops,  with  the  assistance  only  of  Lee  and 
his  Legion,  had  shaken  the  British  power  to  its  very  centre. 
Rawdon  and  Stuart  and  Cruger,  it  is  true,  were  at  Orange- 
burgh,  but  the  whole  country  around  was  now  in  arms 
against  them.  The  battle  of  Quinby  Bridge,  in  which  this 
movement  culminated,  had  not,  it  is  true,  resulted  as  suc- 
cessfully as  had  reasonably  been  hoped,  but  a  severe  battle 
had  been  fought  with  advantage,  the  enemy  losing  all 
their  baggage  and  many  prisoners,  besides  the  killed  and 
wounded,  within  twenty  miles  of  the  town. 

The  British  never  recovered  from  the  effects  of  this 
movement.  The  battle  of  Eutaw,  which  took  place  six 
weeks  later,  has  generally  been  considered  as  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  war  in  South  Carolina,  and  in  many  respects  it 
was  so.  But  that  battle  was  for  the  Americans  at  best 
but  a  drawn  one.  It  was  not  an  American  victory. 
Greene,  who  had  attacked,  collected  his  shattered  forces 
seven  miles  from  the  battle-field  at  night;    while  Stuart 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  645 

remained  upon  the  field  and  leisurely  retreated  the  next 
day.  The  battle  had  not  altered  the  situations  of  the 
two  parties.  The  movement  was  made  and  the  battle 
fought  for  purposes  not  immediately  affecting  the  war  in 
South  Carolina.  Greene  moved  to  put  himself  in  a  posi- 
tion to  intercept  Cornwallis  should  that  general,  retreat- 
ing before  Washington  and  Rochambeau,  attempt  to  reach 
Charlestown.  It  failed  in  that  object,  for  Greene  was 
obliged  again  to  retire  to  his  former  position  on  the  High 
Hills  of  Santee,  where  he  remained  for  two  months.  The 
anticipated  movement  of  Cornwallis  which  induced  Greene's 
advance  had  not  taken  place.  His  lordship  had  not  re- 
treated, but  remained  to  be  captured  at  Yorktown.  The 
battle  of  Eutaw  therefore  left  matters  in  the  State  unal- 
tered. It  was  the  incessant  and  vigorous  partisan  warfare 
of  Sumter,  Marion,  Harden,  Lee,  and  latterly,  of  Washing- 
ton, breaking  up  the  enemy's  communication,  destroying 
his  posts,  and  carrying  the  war  into  his  rear,  which  had 
compelled  the  abandonment  of  the  country  by  the  British. 
It  was  the  "  little  strokes."  the  "  partisan  strokes,"  which 
Greene  had  in  January  written  to  Sumter  were  like 
the  garnish  of  a  table,  but  not  to  be  depended  upon  for 
the  great  business  of  the  army,  which  had  really  accom- 
plished so  much.  Greene  had  been  beaten  in  every 
great  affair  he  had  attempted;  and  yet  the  country  had 
been  recovered.  To  whose  policy  was  this  great  success 
due  ?  Was  it  to  Greene's ;  or  to  that  of  Sumter,  Marion, 
and  Lee? 

The  Continental  troops  while  at  the  High  Hills  of  Santee 
had  been  in  great  distress,  without  money  or  stores,  and, 
worse  than  all,  without  medicines  or  hospital  supplies. 
Sickness  had  increased  since  the  battle  of  Eutaw,  probably 
from  the  operations  in  the  swamps  of  the  Congaree,  and 
the  wounded  were  in  a  most  deplorable  condition.    Tarleton 

VOL,.  IV.  —  2  N 


546  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

and  Simcoe  in  Virginia  had  destroyed  the  hospital  stores 
on  the  way  to  South  Carolina.  It  was  at  this  time,  says 
Johnson,  when  pressed  to  the  earth  by  the  distresses  that 
surrounded  him,  and  listening  to  the  daily  representations 
made  of  the  forlorn  state  of  his  men  and  officers,  not  un- 
frequently  accompanied  with  the  indignant  exclamation, 
"  We  are  abandoned,  let  us  retire,"  that  the  general  uttered 
that  celebrated  declaration  which  South  Carolina  will  never 
forget,  '^  I  will  deliver  the  country  or  perishy^  The  State 
certainly  showed  itself  not  ungrateful  for  such  services  as 
the  commander  of  the  Southern  Department  did  render 
within  her  borders.  The  warmest  acknowledgments  for 
what  he  had  done  were  cordially  made,  and  substantial 
emoluments  bestowed  upon  him ;  while  the  deeds  of  her 
own  generals  were  accepted  but  as  services  due  of  right. 
The  State  to-day  does  not  look  back  grudgingly  upon  what 
she  then  gave  heartily.  But  the  historian,  in  view  of  all  that 
is  now  known,  and  of  Greene's  correspondence,  which  is 
now  public,  cannot  but  observe  that  this  determination  to 
stand  by  South  Carolina  or  perish  was  not  announced  until 
General  Washington  himself  had  assumed  command  of  the 
Southern  Department.  Until  Washington  appeared  in  Vir- 
ginia, Greene's  mind  was  set  upon  the  command  in  that 
State.  It  was  Lee's  importunity  and  Rawdon's  evacuation 
of  Camden  only  that  had  prevented  his  abandonment  of 
the  State  immediately  after  his  defeat  at  Hobkirk's  Hill. 
It  was  his  intention  to  have  returned  to  Virginia  with  a 
part  if  not  all  of  his  forces,  had  Ninety  Six  fallen,  leaving 
the  volunteer  bands  of  South  Carolina  alone  to  oppose 
Lord  Rawdon's  army,  which,  though  then  below  the  Santee, 
was  no  weaker  than  when  it  had  beaten  him  at  Hobkirk's 
Hill.  He  had  failed  before  Ninety  Six  and  was  in  full 
retreat  northward  when  Rawdon's  evacuation  of  Ninety 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  249. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  547 

Six  caused  him  again  to  pause,  as  the  evacuation  of  Cam- 
den had  in  April  stopped  his  desertion  of  the  State  at  that 
time. 

Besides  other  great  advantages  which  had  been  derived 
from  the  brilliant  successes  of  Sumter,  Marion,  Pickens, 
and  Lee  during  the  first  months  of  the  year,  two  very 
marked  effects  resulted  to  the  American  cause.  The  first 
of  these  was  that  the  number  of  prisoners  taken  from 
the  British,  in  the  forts  captured,  forced  an  exchange  of 
prisoners,  including  not  only  those  taken  in  the  field,  but  as 
well  the  St.  Augustine  exiles.  The  second  was  that,  by 
reason  of  the  recovery  of  territory  in  which  they  resided, 
and  the  incapacity  of  the  British  to  afford  protection,  many 
of  those  who  had  given  paroles  considered  themselves  re- 
leased from  their  obligations. 

The  first  of  these  returned  Henderson  and  many  other 
valuable  officers  and  stalwart  men  to  the  American  ranks ; 
and  the  second  returned  to  the  service  of  the  State  the 
original  movers  in  the  Revolution  —  men  of  great  personal 
influence  and  character.  The  effort  to  check  these  move- 
ments induced  by  the  second  of  these  causes  led  to  the 
long  imprisonment  of  Postell  and  the  execution  of  Hayne. 
But,  however  tragic  the  latter  event,  it  was  as  nothing  to 
the  terrors  and  distress  of  the  people  caused  by  the  inter- 
necine war  which  arose  as  the  armies  swept  to  and  fro  from 
one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other. 

In  consequence  of  these  civil  wars  between  the  Whigs 
and  Tories,  says  Ramsay,  the  incursions  of  the  savages, 
and  the  other  calamities  resulting  from  the  operations  of 
the  British  and  American  armies,  South  Carolina  exhibited 
scenes  of  distress  which  were  shocking  to  humanity.  The 
single  district  of  Ninety  Six,  which  was  only  one  of  seven 
into  which  the  State  was  then  divided,  was  computed  by 
well-informed  persons  residing  therein  to  contain  within  its 


548  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

limits  fourteen  hundred  widows  and  orphans  made  so  by 
the  war.  Nor  was  it  wonderful  that  the  country  was 
involved  in  such  accumulated  distress.  The  State  govern- 
ment was  suspended  and  the  British  conquerors  were  care- 
less of  the  civil  rights  of  the  inhabitants.  Order  and  police 
were  scarcely  objects  of  their  attention.  The  will  of  the 
strongest  was  the  law.  Such  was  the  general  character 
of  those  who  called  themselves  Royalists  that  nothing  could 
be  expected  from  them,  unrestrained  as  they  were  by  civil 
government,  but  outrages  against  the  peace  and  order  of 
society.  Though  among  the  Tories  in  the  lower  parts  of 
South  Carolina  there  were  gentlemen  of  honor,  principle, 
and  humanity,  j^et  in  the  interior  and  frontier  a  great  pro- 
portion of  them  constituted  an  ignorant,  unprincipled  ban- 
ditti, to  whom  idleness,  licentiousness,  and  deeds  of  violence 
were  familiar.  Horse  thieves  and  others  whose  crimes  had 
exiled  them  from  society,  the  same  class  who  had  given 
rise  to  the  Regulators  a  few  years  before,  attached  them- 
selves to  parties  of  the  British.  Encouraged  by  their  ex- 
ample and  instigated  by  the  love  of  plunder,  they  committed 
the  most  extensive  depredations.  Under  cloak  of  attach- 
ment to  the  old  government  they  covered  the  basest  and 
most  selfish  purposes.  They  could  scarcely  ever  be  brought 
to  the  field  of  battle.  They  sometimes  furnished  the 
British  army  with  intelligence  and  provisions,  but  on  all 
other  accounts  their  services  were  of  very  little  impor- 
tance.^ 

This  characterization  of  Tories  by  Doctor  Ramsay,  espe- 
cially of  those  of  the  Up-Country,  is  doubtless  generally 
correct ;  but  there  were  some  in  the  upper  part  of  the  State 
who  were  as  honorable  and  high-minded  men  as  any  who 
stood  out  in  the  Low-Country  —  indeed  if  not  as  true  men 
as  any  of  those  who  espoused  the  other  side.  Nothing  has 
1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  275-276. 


IN   THE  KEVOLUTION  649 

ever  been  alleged  as  dishonorable  of  Robert  or  Patrick  Cun- 
ingham  or  of  Fletchall,  Robinson,  or  Pearis.  It  is  to  be 
feared  indeed  that  the  first  of  these  had  stronger  cause  of 
complaint  against  the  conduct  of  the  Whigs  to  himself 
than  he  had  ever  afforded  to  them.  Nor  can  we  be  blind 
to  the  fact  that  the  British  officers  charged  great  atrocities 
upon  the  part  of  men  calling  themselves  Whigs,  charges 
which  are,  at  least  in  some  measure,  sustained  by  the  corre- 
spondence of  our  own  officers.  Colonel  Wade  Hampton 
writing,  as  we  have  seen,  that  after  the  army  left  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Friday's  Ferry  for  the  High  Hills  of  Santee 
almost  every  person  who  remained  in  the  settlement  after 
the  army  marched  seems  to  have  been  combined  in  com- 
mitting robberies  the  most  base  and  inhuman  that  ever  dis- 
graced mankind  ;  and  another  officer  declaring  that  the 
practice  of  plunder  continued  to  such  a  degree  that  the 
poor  inhabitants  trembled  the  moment  a  party  of  men 
appeared  in  sight.^  The  truth  no  doubt  is  that  while  gen- 
erally, as  the  war  went  on,  the  better  classes  of  the  people 
sided  more  and  more  with  the  Revolutionists,  and  the  lower 
and  worst  with  the  British,  mutual  injuries  led  to  revenge, 
and  plunder  was  indulged  in,  if  not  recognized  as  a  mode 
of  legitimate  warfare.  It  has  already  been  pointed  out 
in  these  pages  how  much  the  system  of  maintaining  the 
State  troops,  adopted  from  necessity  by  Sumter  and  after- 
wards approved  and  carried  out  by  General  Greene,  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge,  and  the  General  Assembly,  encouraged  this 
ruinous  practice. 

As,  however,  the  military  forces  recovered  possession  of 
the  State,  Governor  Rutledge,  with  such  of  his  council  as 
he  could  gather  around  him,  proceeded  to  reestablish  civil 
government,  and  to  put  a  stop  to  lawlessness ;  but  this,  in 
the  condition  of  affairs,  was  but  slow  and  gradual  work. 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  186-187. 


560  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

The  better  to  accomplish  it,  as  General  Greene  moved 
down  to  the  Low-Country  at  the  end  of  the  year,  Governor 
Rutledge  called  a  new  Assembly,  to  meet  at  Jackson- 
borough  in  January. 

When  the  year  1781  began,  the  British  had  possession 
of  almost  the  entire  State.  General  Greene,  with  his  small 
Continental  army,  was  but  just  across  the  North  Carolina 
line  at  Cheraw.  Morgan,  it  is  true,  was  at  Grindall's 
Shoals  on  the  Pacolet,  threatening  Ninety  Six,  and  Marion 
from  Snow  Island  was  pushing  his  scouting  parties  towards 
Charlestown  and  Georgetown;  but  the  British  authority, 
supported  by  British  arms,  was  everywhere  paramount. 
When  the  year  ended  British  rule  was  practically  confined 
to  Charlestown  and  its  immediate  vicinity. 

During  the  year  sixty-two  battles,  great  and  small,  had 
been  fought  in  the  State.  If  we  include  the  days  spent 
in  the  sieges  of  Fort  Watson,  Fort  Motte,  and  Ninety  Six, 
there  had  been  fighting  by  organized  and  commissioned 
forces  100  days  in  the  365.  In  the  disturbed  and  dis- 
organized condition  of  affairs  the  reports  of  the  strength  of 
the  forces,  of  the  killed,  wounded,  and  prisoners  lost  on 
either  side,  are  very  defective,  and  in  many  cases,  especially 
in  the  affairs  under  Sumter  and  Marion  which  took  place 
during  the  absence  of  Greene,  are  entirely  wanting.  The 
following  table  has  been  compiled  from  such  accounts  as 
still  exist.  The  engagements  marked  in  roman  letters 
were  those  in  which  Continental  troops  took  part.  Those 
in  italics  were  fought  by  South  Carolina  partisan  bands 
without  any  assistance. 


IN   THE  KEVOLUTION 


551 


11 

^.  i  i  1  i 

1^  1^1^^4 

(  Many  Bri 
1  Torioi  kil 
f  woundtd. 
Many  Bri 
i  Toriei  kil 
I  wounded. 
S  No  accoun 
i  on  cither  s 
)  No  accoun 
'  on  cither  8 
5  No  accoun 
t  on  lither  s 
5  No  accoun 
( on  either  s 

i 

g           S           -^        g^    ^S53| 

CD 

11. 

1^ 

J8                           ^S    ^^S| 

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5 

C. 
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li 

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r-i 

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CO                                            00                                                                             N        00 

-< 
0 

1781 
January  16 
January  19 

January 

^^       2  as                              a 

c8     c4     rt     S     tf     ?i  d -^ -^ ''-^ -^ -^  "^ -^ -^ -" -^  __-_.  —  —, —. 

Cowpens 

De  Peyster's  Capture 

Sampit  Road 

Georgetown 

Wadboo 

Monck's  Corner 

Halfway  Swamp 

Fort  Granby 

Thomson's  Plantation 
Wright's  Bluff 
Mud  Lick 
Lynch' s  Creek 
Wiboo  Swamp 
Mount  Hope 
Black  River 
Sampit  Bridge 
Snow  Island 
Wilherspoon's  Ferry 
Dutchman's  Creek 
Beattie's  Mill 
Four  Holes 
Waxhaws  Church 
Barton's  Post 
Pocotaligo  Road 
Fort  Balfour 
Fort  Watson 

1HC<<     CO 

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652, 


HISTORY  OP  SOUTH  OAEOLINA 


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IN  THE  REVOLUTION  553 

From  this  table  it  appears  that  of  the  sixty-two  engage- 
ments during  the  year  the  State  forces,  volunteer  and 
enlisted,  fought  forty-five  without  any  assistance  whatever, 
Continental  or  other.  One,  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
was  fought  by  the  Continental  army  without  the  assistance 
of  any  South  Carolina  troops.  The  other  sixteen  were 
fought  by  the  combined  Continentals  and  State  troops. 
There  was  one  very  marked  difference  between  the  engage- 
ments by  the  partisan  bands  in  this  year  from  those  of  the 
preceding.  In  1780  the  South  Carolina  volunteers  had 
had  the  constant  and  vigorous  assistance  of  similar  bodies 
from  North  Carolina,  sometimes  from  Georgia,  and  in 
one  instance,  that  of  King's  Mountain,  from  Virginia. 
But  Davie  had  unfortunately  been  taken  from  the  field  by 
General  Greene  for  staff  duty,  and  his  splendid  little  corps 
disbanded.  Davidson  had  been  killed  at  Cowan's  Ford 
early  in  the  year,  and  the  other  leaders  of  that  State,  Mc- 
Dowell, Shelby,  and  Sevier,  had  remained  inactive  now  that 
the  war  was  transferred  again  to  South  Carolina.  The 
two  latter,  it  is  true,  had,  at  General  Greene's  earnest  ap- 
peal, come  for  a  while  ;  but  refused  to  remain,  and  had 
abandoned  him  at  a  most  critical  moment  without  having 
fired  a  gun.  Colonel  Clarke  with  his  band  of  Georgians 
had  taken  an  active  part  with  General  Pickens  in  the  affair 
at  Beattie's  Mill  and  at  the  siege  of  Augusta,  but  his  opera- 
tions for  the  rest  of  the  year  had  been  confined  to  his  own 
State. 

The  returns  of  killed,  wounded,  and  missing  in  several 
of  these  engagements  are  entirely  wanting,  and  in  other 
instances  are  to  be  found  onl}^  for  one  side  or  the  other. 
From  those  that  have  been  preserved  it  appears  that,  during 
the  absence  of  General  Greene  in  North  Carolina,  in  the 
engagements  by  Sumter  and  Marion,  the  Whigs  inflicted  a 
loss  upon  the  British  and  Tories  in  killed,  wounded,  and 


554:  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

prisoners  taken,  of  249,  at  a  loss  to  themselves  of  101.  But 
these  figures  do  not  include  the  loss  to  the  enemy  at  Sam- 
pit  on  the  19th  of  January,  in  which  many  British  and 
Tories  were  wounded,  nor  at  Wadboo  and  Monck's  Corner, 
in  which  the  Postells  attacked  the  posts  and  carried  off 
all  the  stores,  presumably  not  without  considerable  loss  to 
the  enemy  in  men,  nor  at  Fort  Granby  when  first  besieged 
by  Sumter,  nor  at  Wright's  Bluff  which  he  assaulted ;  nor 
in  Marion's  affairs,  of  Mount  Hope,  Black  River,  Sampit,  and 
Witherspoon's  Ferry,  though  in  these  Marion  so  worsted 
the  British  that  he  drove  them  from  the  Santee  into  George- 
town. The  statistics  of  these  affairs  would  add  consider- 
ably to  the  list  of  casualties  on  both  sides,  but  would  not 
probably  alter  the  proportion  of  nearly  three  to  one  in  favor 
of  the  Americans.  During  the  year  the  South  Carolina 
partisan  bands  in  their  warfare  had  forty-five  affairs,  great 
and  small,  and  had  put  hors  de  combat  825  of  the  enemy  at 
a  loss  to  themselves  of  263.  At  Hobkirk's  Hill,  in  the 
evacuation  of  Camden,  Eggles ton's  capture,  Washington's 
Raid,  and  in  the  affairs  at  Dorchester,  in  which  none  but 
Continentals  were  engaged,  the  losses  were  not  so  unequal, 
the  British  losing  388  and  the  Americans  283.  In  the 
eleven  battles  in  which  both  Continentals  and  State  troops 
took  part  the  British  lost  2268 ;  and  the  Americans,  859. 
The  aggregate  loss  of  the  British  in  South  Carolina  during 
the  year  was  3526,  and  of  the  Americans,  1405. 

The  surrender  of  Lord  Cornw^allis  at  York  town  in 
October  had  practically  decided  the  war ;  but  the  fighting 
was  not  yet  over  in  South  Carolina.  In  1782  much  more 
blood  was  to  be  uselessly  shed. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

1781-1782 

On  the  23d  of  November,  1781,  Governor  Rutledge  wrote 
letters  to  the  brigadier-generals,  sending  them  writs  for 
the  election  of  members  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives. He  requested  these  officers  to  insert  in  each 
writ  sent  them  respectively  the  names  of  three  such  per- 
sons as  were  deemed  proper  to  manage  the  elections.  The 
writs  so  prepared,  he  directed,  should  be  forwarded  by 
careful  hands  to  the  persons  therein  named.  His  instruc- 
tions were  that  where  an  election  could  not  be  held  in  the 
parish  or  district  for  which  members  were  to  be  chosen,  it 
should  be  held  at  a  point  nearest  to  it,  where  the  greatest 
number  of  persons  entitled  to  vote  could  meet  with  safety 
and  convenience.  The  brigadiers  were  to  advise  the  man- 
agers whom  they  appointed  as  to  the  selection  of  polling 
places.^  "  Cassius,"  in  the  pamphlet  before  alluded  to, 
asserts  that  these  writs  of  election  were  accompanied  with 
printed  instructions  to  the  returning  officers  not  to  admit 
any  person  to  vote  but  such  as  obeyed  the  governor's  proc- 
lamation ;  and  that  the  returning  officers  had  also  further 
orders  to  choose  particular  men  whom  he  named,  and  ac- 
cording to  such  nomination  they  were  chosen.  There  is 
no  allusion  to  any  such  instructions  in  the  letters  to  Sum- 
ter and  Marion  which  are  preserved.  But  all  accounts 
agree  that  it  was  ordered  by  the   governor  and   council 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  {Vl^\--2>2),  214  ;  Sumter  MSS. 
565 


556  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

that  at  the  election  only  such  votes  should  be  received 
as  were  offered  by  persons  who  had  not  taken  protection, 
or,  who  having  done  so,  had,  notwithstanding,  rejoined  their 
countrymen  under  Governor  Rutledge's  proclamation  of 
the  27th  of  September,  1781.  Other  persons,  though  resi- 
dents, were  not  considered  as  freemen  of  the  State,  or 
entitled  to  the  full  privilege  of  citizenship.^ 

As  the  governor's  proclamation,  says  Johnson,  precluded 
all  persons  from  voting  who  had  taken  protection,  it  will 
readily  be  conjectured  of  what  material  the  body  elected 
would  be  composed.  It  was  not  strictly,  he  observes,  an 
assembly  of  armed  barons,  but  there  were  few,  if  any, 
whose  swords  had  not  been  girt  to  their  thighs  in  the 
common  cause.^  The  exchange  of  prisoners  had  liberated 
the  exiles,  and  those  confined  on  the  prison  ships,  the 
influence  of  whose  character  had  too  long  been  lost  to  the 
State.  These  were  now  returning,  ready  to  assist  with 
their  counsel  in  repairing  the  desolation  of  war.  From  all 
quarters,  says  Lee,  were  flocking  home  our  unfortunate, 
maltreated  prisoners.  The  old  and  the  young,  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  were  hastening  to  their  native  soil,  burying 
their  particular  griefs  in  the  joy  universally  felt  in  conse- 
quence of  the  liberation  of  their  country.  They  found 
their  houses  burnt,  their  plantations  laid  waste,  and  the 
rich  rewards  of  a  life  of  industry  and  economy  dissipated. 
Without  money,  without  credit,  with  debilitated  constitu- 
tions, with  scars  and  aches,  this  brave,  patriotic  group 
gloried  in  the  adversity  they  had  experienced  because 
the  price  of  their  personal  liberty  and  of  national  inde- 
pendence. They  had  lost  their  wealth,  they  had  lost  their 
health,  and  had  lost  the  props  of  their  declining  years  in 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  334;  Moultrie's  Memoirs, 
vol.  II,  304. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  282. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  557 

the  field  of  battle ;  but  they  had  established  the  indepen- 
dence of  their  country.^ 

The  Assembly  about  to  convene  was  composed  almost 
entirely  of  two  classes :  Prisoners,  —  the  exiles  to  St. 
Augustine  and  those  confined  on  the  prison  ships,  —  and 
officers  of  the  Continental  army,  State  troops,  and  militia. 
Among  those  who  were  returned  from  the  parishes  of  St. 
Philip  and  St.  Michael's,  Charlestown,  the  senators  were 
Arthur  Middleton,  the  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, an  exile  to  St.  Augustine,  and  Colonel  Isaac 
Motte,  who  had  been  second  in  command  at  Fort  Moultrie 
on  the  28th  of  June,  1776.  As  representatives  there  were 
Thomas  Hey  ward,  Jr.,  and  Edward  Rutledge,  the  other 
two  living  signers  of  the  Declaration;  Henry  Laurens, 
just  released  from  the  Tower  in  London,  and  Colonel 
John  Laurens,  his  son ;  Hugh  Rutledge ;  John  Neuf- 
ville,  the  chairman,  it  will  be  recollected,  of  the  general 
committee  of  the  non-importers  in  1769 ;  Major  Thomas 
Grimball,  who  commanded  the  Charlestown  Battalion 
of  Artillery  during  the  siege  of  the  city;  Dr.  David 
Ramsay,  the  future  historian,  and  other  exiles,  with  Major 
Thomas  Pinckney  and  Colonel  James  Postell.  The 
senator  from  Christ  Church  was  Colonel  Arnoldus  Vander- 
horst,  and  Major  John  Vanderhorst  a  representative,  two 
of  Marion's  officers.  Marion  himself  was  senator  from  St. 
John's,  Berkeley.  From  St.  Andrew's,  John  Rutledge,  the 
governor;  Richard  Hutson,  Benjamin  Cattell,  exiles,  and 
Major  Peter  Bocquet  were  among  the  representatives. 
From  St.  George's,  Dorchester,  Dr.  David  Oliphant,  the 
surgeon-general,  was  elected  as  senator;  General  Isaac 
Huger,  General  William  Moultrie,  Colonel  Charles  Cotes- 
worth  Pinckney,  John  Mathews,  the  member  of  Congress, 
and  Edward  Blake,  an  exile,  representatives.  St.  James's, 
1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776,  450. 


558  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Goose  Creek,  chose  as  representatives  Ralph  Izard,  who 
had  been  one  of  the  American  envoys  abroad,  and  who 
was  now  serving  as  a  volunteer  in  the  army,  and  William 
Johnson  and  George  Flagg,  two  exiles.  From  St.  Thomas 
and  St.  Denis's,  Major  Isaac  Harleston  was  senator. 
From  St.  Paul's,  Joseph  Bee,  an  exile,  was  senator,  and 
Thomas  Bee,  formerly  lieutenant-governor;  Thomas  Fer- 
guson and  Morton  Wilkinson,  exiles,  were  representatives. 
From  St.  Bartholomew's,  Major  Edmund  Hyrne,  aide-de- 
camp to  General  Greene,  who  had  so  admirably  managed 
the  exchange  of  prisoners  on  the  American  side,  was 
elected  a  representative.  From  St.  Helena,  Major  Pierce 
Butler  ^  and  Thomas  Heyward,  Sr.,  were  elected.  Prince 
George's,  Winyaw,  elected  a  strong  delegation,  includ- 
ing Colonel  Hugh  Horry  as  senator.  General  Christopher 
Gadsden,  Colonel  Peter  Horry,  Major  William  Benison,  and 
Captain  Thomas  Mitchell.  Captain  William  Alston,  and 
Nathaniel  D wight,  whose  house  Watson  had  burned,  were 
the  representatives  from  All  Saints.  From  Prince  Fred- 
erick's there  were  Colonel  John  Baxter,  who  had  been  so 
severely  wounded  at  Quinby  ;  Major  John  James,  Captain 
William  McCottry,  Captain  John  McCauley,  and  Colonel 
James  Postell,  all  Marion's  men.  Among  the  represen- 
tatives from  St.  Peter's  was  Colonel  William  Stafford. 
The  senator  from  Prince  William's  was  Colonel  William 

1  This  gentleman  had  been  major  in  the  Twenty-ninth  Regiment, 
British  army,  and  was  engaged  as  such  in  the  Boston  Riots,  the  5th  of 
March,  1770.  He  had  been  with  his  regiment  in  South  Carolina  previ- 
ously. He  subsequently  returned  and  married  Miss  Mary  Middleton, 
daughter  of  Colonel  Thomas  Middleton  (who  had  commanded  the  South 
Carolina  Regiment  in  the  Cherokee  expedition  in  17G1),  espoused  the 
American  cause,  resigned  his  commission  in  the  British  army,  and  served 
in  the  American.  He  and  Ralph  Izard  were  the  two  first  United  States 
senators  from  South  Carolina.  (See  So.  Ca.  Gazette,  April  20,  1760  ;  So, 
Ca.  and  Am.  Gen.  Gazette,  Jan.  14,  1771 ;  Johnson's  Traditions,  470.) 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  559 

Harden.  From  the  district  to  the  eastward  of  the 
Wateree  — that  is,  the  Camden  district  —  General  Sumter 
was  chosen  senator,  and  among  the  ten  representatives 
were  James  Bradley,  with  the  marks  of  iron  still  on  his 
wrists,  where  they  had  remained  since  Tarleton's  brutal 
treatment;  Joseph  Kershaw,  just  released  and  returned 
from  Bermuda,  where  he  had  been  exiled  with  his  brother 
Ely,  who  had  died  on  the  voyage  of  typhus  dysentery  taken 
in  the  prison  ships ;  Colonel  Richard  Richardson ;  and 
Major  John  James,  who  had  been  returned  also  from 
Prince  Frederick's.  From  Ninety  Six  the  senator  was  John 
Lewis  Gervais,  the  member  of  the  council  who  had  gone 
out  with  Governor  Rutledge  from  Charlestown  before  its 
capitulation,  and  had  succeeded  in  keeping  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  enemy,  remaining  steadfast  to  the  cause 
while  the  two  other  councillors  who  had  gone  with  them 
had  returned  to  their  plantations  and  taken  protection. 
General  Pickens,  Colonel  Robert  Anderson,  Colonel 
Le  Roy  Hammond,  Major  Hugh  Middleton,  Patrick 
Calhoun,  John  Evving  Colhoun,  and  Arthur  Simkins, 
whose  house  the  Tories  had  burned,  were  representatives. 
Colonels  Wade  Hampton  and  Richard  Hampton  were 
representatives  from  Saxe  Gotha.  From  the  upper  district 
between  the  Broad  and  Saluda,  that  is,  what  is  now  Spar- 
tanburg County,  the  representatives  were  General  William 
Henderson,  Colonel  Thomas  Brandon,  one  of  the  heroes  of 
King's  Mountain,  Samuel  McJunkin,  father  of  the  famous 
Whig  partisan,  Joseph  McJunkin,  and  Colonel  John 
Thomas,  Jr.,  the  hero  of  Cedar  Springs.  Colonel  Thomas 
Taylor  was  senator  from  the  district  between  the  Broad 
and  the  Catawba,  and  among  the  representatives  were 
Colonel  James  Lyles,  Colonel  Edward  Lacey,  and  Colonel 
Richard  Winn.  Colonel  William  Hill,  whose  iron  works 
were  destroyed  by  Huck,  and  who  had  served  so  gallantly 


660  HISTORY   OP  SOCTTH  CAROLINA 

under  Sumter  and  at  King's  Mountain,  was  a  representa- 
tive from  the  New  Acquisition  (York).  Colonel  William 
Thomson,  who  had  repulsed  the  British  under  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  when  attempting  to  cross  from  Long  Island  to 
Sullivan's  Island  on  the  memorable  28th  of  June,  1776, 
was  senator  from  St.  Matthew's  and  Orange.  Major 
Thomas,  who  had  captured  the  party  on  the  Pee  Dee  in  Sep- 
tember, 1780,  was  a  representative  from  St.  David's  Parish.^ 
/  As  already  stated.  Governor  Rutledge  had  first  intended 
to  have  called  this  Assembly  to  meet  at  Camden,  but  the 
capture  of  Governor  Burke  and  his  council  in  North 
Carolina  had  warned  him  of  the  danger  of  assembling 
the  body  at  a  place  beyond  the  immediate  protection  of 
the  army.  General  Greene,  upon  his  excursion  to  Dor- 
chester, finding  the  country  between  the  Edisto  and  Ashley 
possessed  of  sufficient  military  advantages  to  admit  of 
his  covering  Jacksonborough,  warmly  pressed  the  governor 
and  council  to  convene  the  legislature  at  that  place  — 
a  strong  consideration,  doubtless,  also  was  that  so  many 
of  the  Assembly  were  officers  of  the  army  it  would  have 
been  impracticable  to  have  formed  a  quorum  except  in  its 
immediate  vicinity.  Jacksonborough  was  a  small  village 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  Edisto,  where  the  river  is  known 
by  the  name  of  Pon  Pon.  It  consisted  of  the  court- 
house, jail,  and  two  or  three  small  houses,  and  was  distant 
about  thirty-five  miles  from  Charlestown.  An  incidental 
advantage  contemplated  by  the  establishment  of  the  seat 
of  government  at  this  place  was  the  assertion  of  the  com- 
plete recovery  of  the  State. 
\J  '  The  legislature  convened,  as  called,  on  the  18th  of 
January,  1782.  By  the  constitution  of  1778  its  full  mem- 
bership consisted  of  28  senators  and  174  representatives. 

1  For  full  list  of  members  of  the  Jacksonborough  legislature,  see  MS. 
journal  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr.,  and  Appendix  A  to  this  volume. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  561 

A  quorum  was  constituted  of  13  senators  and  69  repre- 
sentatives. On  the  day  appointed,  13  senators,  just  enough 
to  organize  the  Senate,  and  74  representatives,  but  a  few 
more  than  was  necessary  to  organize  the  House,  appeared.^ 
It  was  indeed  a  notable  assembly.  True,  some  of  its  most 
distinguished  members  were  absent,  as,  for  instance,  Henry 
Laurens,  who,  just  released  from  the  Tower,  was  still  in 
London.  So,  too,  several  of  the  exiles  were  yet  detained  in 
Philadelphia,  finding  no  means  of  returning,  and  some  on 
the  journey  home  had  not  yet  arrived.  Not  all  of  the 
military  officers  could  leave  their  posts  at  the  same  time  ; 
nor  could  all  elected  provide  for  the  sustenance  and 
defence  of  their  families  in  the  distracted  state  of  the 
country  so  as  to  allow  them  to  attend.  It  was  remarkable 
that,  in  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  State,  so  large 
a  number  as  that  which  appeared  could  be  found  to 
assemble.  Those  who  did  were  all  true  and  tried  Whigs ; 
the  qualifications  of  electors  as  prescribed  in  the  proclama- 
tion precluded  any  other.  Indeed,  as  already  observed,  it 
was  charged  that  Governor  Rutledge  had  himself  selected 
and  dictated  who  should  be  chosen.  There  appears  to  be, 
however,  no  evidence  to  support  the  assertion,  nor  could 
an  election  at  this  time  and  under  the  circumstances  be 
expected  to  return  men  of  any  other  character  than  those 
who  now  appeared.  A  more  distinguished  body  of  men 
had  never  before,  and  never  after,  met  in  the  State  of 
South  Carolina,  nor  perhaps  in  any  State  in  the  Union. 
All  the  original  leaders  in  the  Revolution  who  had  remained 
true  to  their  principles,  most  of  whom  had  endured  impris- 
onment and  exile  in  support  of  them,  were  there  ;  and  to 
these  were  added  the  new  set  of  heroes  who  had  taken  up 
the  cause  when  the  first  were  overwhelmed  in  defeat  and 
carried   into   captivity,  and  who   had  now  recovered  the 

1  Marion's  letter  to  Maliam,  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1782-82),  232. 

VOL.  IV. —2  o 


i562.  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

jy'  State,  and  restored  the  former  leaders  to  position.  The 
Assembly  was  composed,  not  only  of  patriots  who  had 
proved  their  fidelity  by  suffering,  but  of  statesmen,  jurists, 
scholars,  and  soldiers,  many  of  whom  had  but  commenced 
careers  of  distinguished  services,  and  whose  names  are 
still  handed  down  with  pride  and  reverence,  and  preserved 
in  the  names  of  counties,  towns,  and  fortresses,  and  by 
every  means  by  which  a  grateful  posterity  might  enshrine 
their  memories. 
[/  The  assemblage  was  remarkable,  too,  because  it  was 
the  first  in  which  there  had  been  real  representatives  in  the 
legislature  from  all  parts  of  the  State.  In  this  body 
Sumter  and  Pickens  and  Taylor  and  Lacey  and  Winn 
and  the  Hamptons  and  Hammonds  appeared,  and  brought 
with  them  from  the  Up- Country,  which  their  swords 
had  redeemed,  as  much  weight  in  council  as  that  which 
had  hitherto  been  carried  by  the  Rutledges,  Pinckneys, 
Middletons,  and  others  of  the  Low-Country. 
■  But  with  all  the  ability  and  high  character  of  the  mem- 
bers, the  circumstances  under  which  they  met  were  such 
as  to  preclude  moderation  and  fairness  in  their  dealings 
with  their  fellow-countrymen  who  had  espoused  the  cause 
of  their  enemies. 
I  Upon  the  assembling  of  the  body,  John  Lewis  Gervais 
was  chosen  President  of  the  Senate,  and  Philip  Prioleau, 
Clerk;  Hugh  Rutledge,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, and  John  Berwick,  Clerk.^  No  journal  of  either  House 
is  now  to  be  found.  The  court-house  and  jail  probably 
were  used  as  Senate  chamber  and  hall  of  the  House ;  paper 
was  scarce ;  and  beyond  the  address  of  the  Governor,  the 
replies  of  the  two  Houses,  and  the  statutes  actually  passed, 
we  have  but  little  account  of  the  proceedings  of  this  famous 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  34C,  349 ;  MS.  diary  of  Josiah 
Smith,  Jr. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  563 

Assembly.  As  there  were  but  two  or  three  houses  in  the 
village,  the  members  probably  found  such  accommodations 
as  they  could  upon  the  neighboring  plantations,  or  in  the 
cantonments  of  the  army  under  the  protection  of  which 
the  legislature  was  held. 

The  Houses  having  organized  on  Friday,  the  18th  day 
of  January,  1782,  his  Excellency,  John  Rutledge,  the  gov- 
ernor, delivered  an  address,  or  "  speech,"  as  it  was  termed, 
the  importance  of  which,  marking  out  as  it  did  the  lines 
followed  by  the  Assembly,  it  is  well  to  give  somewhat  at 
length.     It  was  as  follows  :  ^  — 

"  Since  the  last  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly,  the  good  people 
of  this  State  have  not  only  felt  the  common  calamities  of  war,  but, 
from  the  wanton  and  savage  manner  in  which  it  has  been  prosecuted, 
they  have  experienced  such  severities  as  are  unpractised,  and  will 
scarcely  be  credited  by  civilized  nations. 

"The  enemy,  unable  to  make  any  impression  on  the  Northern 
States,  the  number  of  whose  inhabitants,  and  the  strength  of  whose 
country,  had  baffled  their  repeated  efforts,  turned  their  views  towards 
the  Southern,  which,  a  difference  of  circumstances,  afforded  some  ex- 
pectation of  conquering,  or  at  least  of  greatly  distressing.  After  a 
long  resistance,  the  reduction  of  Charlestown  was  effected,  by  the  vast 
superiority  of  force  with  which  it  had  been  besieged.  The  loss  of 
that  garrison,  as  it  consisted  of  the  continental  troops  of  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas,  and  of  a  number  of  militia,  facilitated  the  enemy's 
march  into  the  country,  and  their  establishment  of  strong  posts  in 
the  upper  and  interior  parts  of  it ;  and  the  unfavourable  issue  of  the 
action  near  Camden  induced  them  vainly  to  imagine,  that  no  other 
army  could  be  collected  which  they  might  not  easily  defeat.  The 
militia,  commanded  by  the  Brigadiers  Sumpter  and  Marion,  whose 
enterprising  spirit  and  unremitted  perseverance  under  many  difficul- 
ties are  deserving  of  great  applause,  harassed  and  often  defeated  large 
parties;  but  the  numbers  of  those  militia  w^ere  too  few  to  contend 
effectually  wdth  the  collected  strength  of  the  enemy.  Regardless, 
therefore,  of  the  sacred  ties  of  honour,  destitute  of  the  feelings  of 
humanity,  and  determined  to  extinguish,  if  possible,  every  spark  of 
freedom  in  this  country,  they,  with  the  insolent  pride  of  conquerors, 

1  Ramsay's  Revolution  in  So.  Ca..,  vol.  II,  234. 


664  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

gave  unbounded  scope  to  the  exercise  of  their  tyrannical  disposition, 
infringed  their  publick  engagements,  and  violated  their  most  solemn 
capitulations.  Many  of  our  worthiest  citizens  were,  without  cause, 
long  and  closely  confined,  —  some  on  board  of  prison-ships,  and  others 
in  the  town  and  castle  of  St.  Augustine,  —  their  properties  disposed 
of  at  the  will  and  caprice  of  the  enemy,  and  their  families  sent  to  dif- 
ferent and  distant  parts  of  the  continent  without  the  means  of  sup- 
port. Many  who  had  surrendered  as  prisoners  of  war  were  killed  in 
cold  blood  —  several  suffered  death  in  the  most  ignominious  manner, 
and  others  were  delivered  up  to  savages,  and  put  to  tortures  under 
which  they  expired.  Thus  the  lives,  liberties  and  properties  of  the 
people  were  dependent  solely  on  the  pleasure  of  British  officers,  who 
deprived  them  of  either  or  all  on  the  most  frivolous  pretences. 
Indians,  slaves,  and  a  desperate  banditti  of  the  most  profligate  char- 
acters, were  caressed  and  employed  by  the  enemy  to  execute  their 
infamous  purposes.  Devastation  and  ruin  marked  their  progress 
and  that  of  their  adherents  —  nor  were  their  violences  restrained  by 
the  charms  or  influence  of  beauty  and  innocence  —  even  the  fair  sex, 
whom  it  is  the  duty  of  all,  and  the  pleasure  and  pride  of  the  brave,  to 
protect — they,  and  their  tender  offspring,  were  victims  to  the  inveterate 
malice  of  an  unrelenting  foe.  Neither  the  tears  of  mothers,  nor  the 
cries  of  infants,  could  excite  in  their  breasts  pity  or  compassion.  Not 
only  the  peaceful  habitations  of  the  widow,  the  aged  and  infirm,  but 
the  holy  temples  of  the  Most  High  were  consumed  in  flames  kindled 
by  their  sacrilegious  hands.  They  have  tarnished  the  glory  of  the 
British  arms,  disgraced  the  profession  of  a  British  soldier,  and  fixed 
indelible  stigmas  of  rapine,  cruelty,  perfidy  and  profaneness,  on  the 
British  name.     But  I  can  now  congratulate  you,  and  I  do  so  most 

Sy  cordially,  on  the  pleasing  change  of  affairs  which,  under  the  bless- 
ing of  God,  the  wisdom,  prudence,  address,  and  bravery  of  the  great 

''i   and  gallant  General  Greene,  and  the  intrepidity  of  the  officers  and 

^-.  men  under  his  command,  has  been  happily  effected  —  a  general  who  is 
.  justly  entitled,  from  his  many  signal  services,  to  honourable  and  singu- 
lar marks  of  your  approbation  and  gratitude.  His  successes  have  been 
more  rapid  and  complete  than  the  most  sanguine  could  have  expected. 
The  enemy,  compelled  to  surrender  or  evacuate  every  post  which  they 
held  in  the  country,  frequently  defeated  and  driven  from  place  to  place, 
are  obliged  to  seek  refuge  under  the  walls  of  Charlestown,  and  on 
islands  in  its  vicinity.     We  have  now  the  full  and  absolute  possession 

f  of  every  other  part  of  the  State ;  and  the  legislative,  executive,  and 
■  judicial  powers  are  in  the  free  exercise  of  their  respective  authorities. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  565 

His  Excellency  then  went  on  to  congratulate  the  Assem- 
bly on  the  glorious  victory  obtained  at  Yorktown  by  the 
combined  forces  of  America  and  France  over  their  common 
enemy,  on  the  perfect  harmony  which  subsisted  between 
the  two  countries,  on  the  stability  which  the  indepen- 
dence of  America  had  acquired,  and  on  the  certainty  that  it 
was  too  deeply  rooted  ever  to  be  shaken.  Then  discussing 
what  might  be  the  immediate  effects  on  the  British  nation 
of  the  events  he  had  mentioned,  and  of  their  well-founded 
apprehensions  from  the  powers  of  France,  Spain,  and  Hol- 
land, he  continued :  — 

"  If,  however,  we  judge  as  we  ought  of  their  future  by  their  past 
conduct,  we  may  presume  that  they  will  not  only  endeavour  to  keep 
possession  of  our  capital,  but  make  another  attempt,  howsoever  im- 
probable the  success  of  it  may  appear,  to  subjugate  this  country.  It 
is  therefore  highly  incumbent  on  us  to  use  our  most  strenuous  efforts 
to  frustrate  so  fatal  a  design.  And  I  earnestly  conjure  you  by  the 
duty  which  you  owe,  and  the  sacred  love  which  you  bear,  to  your 
country;  by  the  constant  remembrance  of  her  bitter  sufferings;  and  by 
the  just  detestation  of  British  government,  which  you  and  your 
posterity  must  forever  possess,  to  exert  your  utmost  faculties  for  that 
purpose,  by  raising  and  equipping,  with  all  possible  expedition,  a 
respectable,  permanent  force,  and  by  making  ample  provision  for  their 
comfortable  subsistence.  I  am  sensible  the  expense  will  be  great,  but 
a  measure  so  indispensable  to  the  preservation  of  our  freedom,  is  above 
every  pecuniary  consideration. 

"  The  organization  of  our  militia  is  likewise  a  subject  of  infinite  im- 
'  portance.   A  clear  and  concise  law,  by  which  the  burdens  will  be  equally 
.  sustained,  and  a  competent  immber  of  men  brought  forth  and  kept  in 
j  the  field  when  their  assistance  may  be  required,  is  essential  to  our 
I  security,  and  therefore  justly  claims  your  immediate  and  serious  atten- 
tion.    Certain  it  is,  that  some  of  our  militia  have,  upon  several  occa- 
sions, exhibited  instances  of  valour,  which  would  have  reflected  honour 
on  veteran  troops.     The  courage  and  conduct  of  the  generals  whom  I 
have  mentioned,  the  cool  and  determined  bravery  repeatedly  displayed 
,  by  Brigadier  Pickens,  and,  indeed,  the  behaviour  of  many  officers  and 
men  in  every  brigade,  are  unquestionable  testimonies  of  the  truth  of 


566  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

this  assertion  ;  but  such  behaviour  cannot  be  expected  from  militia  in 
general,  without  good  order  and  strict  discipline — nor  can  that  order 
and  discipline  be  established  but  by  salutary  law  steadily  executed." 

His  Excellency  then  proceeded  to  address  the  Assembly 
upon  a  subject  of  most  vital  interest  to  the  State,  and  one 
in  dealing  with  which  the  greatest  statesmanship  was  de- 
manded.    He  said :  — 

"  Another  important  matter  for  your  deliberation,  is  the  conduct  of 
such  of  our  citizens  as  voluntarily  avowing  their  allegiance,  and  even 
glorying  in  their  profession  of  loyalty  and  attachment  to  his  Britan- 
nick  Majesty,  have  offered  their  congratulations  on  the  success  of  his 
arms,  prayed  to  be  embodied  as  Royal  militia,  accepted  commissions 
in  his  service,  and  endeavoured  to  subvert  our  constitution  and  estab- 
lish his  power  in  its  stead  —  of  those  who  have  returned  to  this  State 
in  defiance  of  a  law  by  which  such  return  was  declared  to  be  a  capital 
oifence,  and  have  abetted  the  British  interest  —  and  of  such  whose 
behaviour  has  been  so  reprehensible,  that  justice  and  policy  forbid 
their  free  re-admission  to  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizens." 

Continuing  the  subject,  his  Excellency  added :  — 

"  The  extraordinary  lenity  of  this  State  has  been  remarkably  conspic- 
uous ;  other  States  have  thought  it  just  and  expedient  to  appropriate 
the  property  of  British  subjects  to  the  public  use,  but  we  have  for- 
borne to  take  even  the  profits  of  the  estates  of  our  most  implacable 
enemies.  It  is  with  you  to  determine  whether  the  forfeiture  and  ap- 
propriation of  their  property  should  now  take  place.  If  such  shall  be 
your  determination,  though  many  of  our  firmest  friends  have  been  re- 
duced, for  their  inflexible  attachment  to  the  cause  of  their  country,  from 
opulence  to  inconceivable  distress,  and,  if  the  enemy's  will  and  power 
had  prevailed,  would  have  been  doomed  to  indigence  and  beggary,  yet 
it  will  redound  to  the  reputation  of  this  State  to  provide  a  becoming 
support  for  the  families  of  those  whom  you  may  deprive  of  their 
property." 

Then  turning  to  the  financial  condition  of  the  State,  he 
proceeded  :  — 

"  The  value  of  the  paper  currency  became  of  late  so  much  depreci- 
ated that  it  was  requisite,  under  the  powers  vested  in  the  executive 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  567 

during  the  recess  of  the  General  Assembly,  to  suspend  the  laws  by 
which  it  was  made  a  tender.  You  will  now  consider  whether  it  may 
not  be  proper  to  repeal  those  laws,  and  fix  some  equitable  mode  for 
the  discharge  of  debts  contracted  whilst  paper  money  was  in  circula- 
tion. 

"  In  the  present  scarcity  of  specie  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  imprac- 
ticable, to  levy  a  tax  to  any  considerable  amount  towards  sinking  the 
public  debt  ;  nor  will  creditors  of  the  State  expect  that  such  a  tax 
should,  at  this  time,  be  imposed  ;  but  it  is  just  and  reasonable,  that  all 
unsettled  demands  should  be  liquidated,  and  satisfactory  assurances  of 
payment  given  to  the  publick  creditors." 

In  conclusion  the  governor  added :  — 

"  The  interest  and  honour,  the  safety  and  happiness  of  our  country, 
depend  so  much  on  the  result  of  your  deliberations,  that  I  flatter  my- 
self you  will  proceed,  in  the  weighty  business  before  you,  with  firmness 
and  temper,  with  vigour,  imanimity  and  despatch."  i 

How  far  General  Greene  was  entitled  to  the  principal,  if 
not  sole,  credit  of  the  redemption  of  the  State,  which,  under 
the  blessing  of  God,  the  governor  attributed  to  him,  has 
already  in  a  measure  been  considered,  and  the  subject  ma}^ 
again  be  alluded  to  when  we  come  to  narrate  the  action  of  the 
Assembly  at  the  suggestion  of  his  Excellency  in  the  rewards 
heaped  upon  him.  It  is  sufficient  now  to  observe  that,  while 
the  enterprising  spirit  and  unremitted  perseverance  of 
Sumter  and  Marion  are  commended,  little  importance 
was  attached  by  the  governor  to  their  conduct  as  forerun- 
ning the  action  of  Greene,  and  preparing  the  way  for  his 
successes,  if  not  accomplishing  results  of  which  his  suc- 
cesses were  only  the  natural  and  inevitable  consequences. 

In  stating  that  the  Whigs  had  now  the  full  and  absolute 
possession  of  every  part  of  the  State  but  Charlestown  and 
the  neighboring  islands,  and  that  the  legislative,  executive, 
and  judicial  powers  were  in  the  free  exercise  of  their  respec- 
tive authorities,  the  governor  rather  overstated  the  result 
1  Ramsay's  Revolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  334-342. 


668  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

that  had  been  so  far  accomplished.  The  legislature  at 
the  time  was  sitting  only  under  the  protection  of  the  army, 
and  judicial  powers  could  scarcely  be  said  to  be  in  existence. 
No  sheriff  could  have  served  a  writ  without  military  as- 
sistance, nor  could  a  court  have  been  convened  or  have 
held  a  session  except,  as  in  the  case  of  the  legislature,  under 
the  protecting  wing  of  the  army.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
courts  were  not  opened  for  nearly  a  year  after.  His  Ex- 
cellency had  indeed  but  begun  the  reestablishment  of  civil 
government,  and  this  only  by  the  aid  of  military  power. 

To  this  address  answers  were  returned  by  the  two  Houses 
of  Assembly.  The  answers  did  but  little  more  than  echo 
his  Excellency's  address,  save  in  regard  to  General  Greene, 
of  whom  they  spoke  in  still  more  exalted  terms.  The 
Senate,  without  an  allusion  to  Sumter,  Marion,  or  Pickens, 
answered :  — 

"  It  is  with  inexpressible  pleasure,  that  we  receive  your  Excellency's 
congratulation  upon  the  great  and  glorious  events  of  the  campaign, 
on  the  happy  change  of  affairs,  and  on  the  pleasing  prospect  before  us ; 
and  we  assure  your  Excellency,  that  we  concur  most  sincerely  with  you, 
in  acknowledging  and  applauding  the  meritorious  zeal,  and  the  very 
important  services  which  have  been  rendered  to  this  State  by  the 
great  and  gallant  General  Greene,  and  the  brave  and  intrepid  officers 
and  men  under  his  command,  and  to  whom  we  shall  be  happy  to  give 
the  most  honourable  and  singular  testimonies  of  our  approbation  and 
applause." 

The  House,  in  still  more  extravagant  language,  replied :  — 

"  We  should  betray  a  great  degree  of  insensibility,  and  be  wanting 
in  justice  to  his  merit,  should  we  omit  this  occasion  of  acknowledging, 
with  the  warmest  gratitude,  our  obligations  to  the  great  and  gallant 
General  Greene.  His  achievements  in  this  State,  while  they  rank  him 
with  the  greatest  commanders  of  ancient  or  modern  date,  will  engrave 
his  name  in  indelible  characters  on  the  heart  of  every  friend  to  this 
country.  Our  acknowledgments  are  also  due  to  all  the  brave  officers 
and  men  under  his  command  who  have  so  often  fought,  bled,  and 
conquered  for  us." 


IN   THE  liEVOLUTION  569 

This  branch  of  the  Assembly,  however,  added  this  much 
merit  of  praise  to  the  partisan  leaders  of  the  State :  — 

"  The  Generals  Sumpter,  Marion,  and  Pickens,  with  the  brave  militia 
under  their  commands,  those  virtuous  citizens  who  did  not  despair  of 
the  commonwealth  in  her  greatest  extremity,  are  deserving  of  the 
highest  commendation." 

Pickens  was  at  this  time  away  conducting  his  most 
successful  campaign  against  the  Indians,  but  both  Sumter 
and  Marion  were  present  in  the  Senate ;  probably  it  was 
their  modesty  and  delicacy  which  excluded  from  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Senate  any  recognition  of  the  great  services 
they  had  rendered,  not  only  before  and  during  Greene's 
campaign  in  the  State,  but  while  he  had  abandoned  it  to 
meet  Lord  Cornwallis  in  North  Carolina. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

1782 

^  The  suggestions  of  his  Excellency  in  his  address  were 
all  carried  out  by  the  legislature.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said 
that  he  moulded  its  action  in  his  proclamation  of  the  27th 
of  September  and  in  his  address. 

Under  the  constitution  of  1778  the  term  of  office  of  the 
governor  and  lieutenant-governor  was  to  continue  for  two 
years,  and  no  one  serving  in  either  of  these  offices  was 
reeligible  for  a  period  of  four  years  after.^  Governor 
Rutledge  had  been  elected  in  January,  1779,  and  Chris- 
topher Gadsden  had,  during  the  siege  of  Charlestown,  in 
May,  1780,  been  appointed  lieutenant-governor  in  the 
place  of  Thomas  Bee,  who  was  in  Philadelphia  attending 
the  Continental  Congress.  Their  terms  of  office,  under 
the  Constitution,  consequently  expired  in  January,  1781, 
but  at  that  time  the  British  had  possession  of  the  whole 
State,  and  no  election  could  be  held.  The  first  duty  of  the 
present  Assembly  which  now  met  was,  therefore,  to  elect  a 
governor  and  lieutenant-governor.  The  Tories,  no  doubt 
learning  of  Sumter's  resignation,  built  up  great  hopes  of  dis- 
cord and  jealousies  among  the  Whigs  at  this  time.  The 
Royal  Gazette  of  the  26th  of  December,  1781,  announcing 
that  the  Assembly  was  soon  to  meet  and  that  a  new  governor 
was  to  be  chosen,  added  as  information  from  the  rebel 
country  that  "the  aristocratick  party  as  they  are  styled 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  I,  138. 
570 


'  IN  THE   REVOLUTION  571 

are  strenuous  for  Mr.  Ralph  Izard,  Senior  —  to  whom  Mr. 
Sumter  is  opposed  by  a  considerable  body  of  the  Back- 
Country  people."  Whether  there  was  any  real  foundation 
for  such  a  rumor  is  not  further  known ;  but  certain  it  is 
that,  though  aggrieved  by  the  action  of  Governor  Rutledge 
at  the  instigation  of  General  Greene,  Sumter  lent  himself 
to  no  such  intrigue.  So  far  was  he  from  seeking  to  be 
elected  governor  that  on  the  22d  of  December  he  writes 
to  General  Greene,  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  two 
letters,  of  the  12th  and  15th.  "In  the  former  of  these 
letters  you  asked  if  I  did  not  intend  to  get  into  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly.  It  is  probable  I  may  serve  if  elected,  but 
as  I  never  have  solicited  any  public  appointment,  I  can't 
think  of  doing  it  now."  And  when  elected  to  the  Senate, 
he  gave  the  new  governor  his  most  active  support,  not- 
withstandinof  the  ill  treatment  he  conceived  himself  to 
have  received,  volunteering  even  to  recruit  men  for  the 
Continental  battalions,  though  himself  out  of  the  service.^ 
The  Assembly  went  into  an  election  for  a  governor,  and 
Christopher  Gadsden,  the  lieutenant-governor,  was  chosen, 
but  he  declined  the  office  in  a  speech  which  Ramsay  reports 
as  to  this  effect  :  — 

I 

"  I  have  served  you  in  a  variety  of  stations  for  thirty  years,  and  I 

would  now  cheerfully  make  one  of  a  forlorn  hope  in  an  assault  on  the 

lines  of  Charlestown,  if  it  was  probable  that,  with  the  certain  loss 

of  my  life,  you  would  be  reinstated  in  the  possession  of  your  capital. 

1  Letter  of  Governor  Mathews  accepting  his  offer,  March  11,  1782, 
Sumter  MSS.  Governor  Mathews  writes  to  Sumter:  "The  estab- 
lishing an  armory  is  certainly  a  very  desirable  object.  I  will  consider 
your  proposal  and  acquaint  you  with  the  result  as  soon  as  I  can.  Your 
undertaking  to  recruit  men  for  our  Continental  battalions  would  be  ren- 
dering your  country  a  most  substantial  service.  I  therefore  request  you 
would  proceed  on  that  business  with  every  possible  attention,  and  inform 
General  Huger  of  my  desire  that  you  would  engage  in  this  important 
business." 


572  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

What  I  can  do  for  my  country  I  am  willing  to  do.  My  sentiments  of 
the  American  cause,  from  the  Stamp  Act  downwards,  have  never 
changed.  I  am  still  of  opinion  that  it  is  the  cause  of  liberty  and  of 
human  nature.  If  my  acceptance  of  the  office  of  governor  would 
serve  my  country,  though  my  administration  would  be  attended  with 
the  loss  of  personal  credit  and  reputation,  I  would  cheerfully  under- 
take it.  The  present  times  require  the  vigour  and  activity  of  the 
prime  of  life ;  but  I  feel  the  increasing  infirmities  of  old  age  to  such  a 
degree,  that  I  am  conscious  I  cannot  serve  you  to  advantage.  I  there- 
fore beg,  for  your  sakes,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  publick,  that  you 
would  indulge  me  with  the  liberty  of  declining  the  arduous  trust."  ^ 

Christopher  Gadsden  having  declined,  John  Mathews, 
the  member  of  Congress  whose  prompt  and  vigorous 
action  had  thwarted  the  intrigue  of  the  French  ambas- 
sador, by  which  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  came  near  being 
sacrificed  for  the  independency  of  the  other  ten  States, 
and  who  had  since  been  rendering  Washington  signal  ser- 
vice as  a  member  of  the  committee  of  Congress  at  his 
headquarters,  was  next  elected  governor  and  accepted  the 
office.  Richard  Hutson,  one  of  the  exiles,  was  elected 
lieutenant-governor.  The  privy  councillors  chosen  were 
Christopher  Gadsden,  Edward  Rutledge,  Peter  Bocquet, 
Morton  Wilkinson,  Richard  Beresford,  Samuel  Smith, 
Benjamin  Guerard,  and  John  Lloyd.  Delegates  to  Con- 
gress, John  Rutledge,  Arthur  Middleton,  John  Lewis 
Gervais,  Ralph  Izard,  and  David  Ramsay.  Commissioners 
of  the  Treasury,  William  Parker  and  Edward  Blake.^ 

The  first  act  passed  by  the  legislature  was  one  repealing 
the  laws  which  had  made  paper  currency  or  bills  of  credit 
a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts.^  Accompanying  this  was 
one  suspending  the  operation  of  the  statute  of  limitations  of 
actions  until  the  1st  of  February,  1783  ;  *  and  another  pro- 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  349. 

2  MS.  diary  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr. ;  The  Boyal  Gazette. 
8  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  IV,  508. 

*7Md,509. 


IN  THE  BEVOLUTION  573 

hibiting  the  commencement  of  suit  for  any  debt  until  ten 
days  after  the  meeting  of  the  next  General  Assembly.^  "An 
act  for  settling  the  qualifications  of  the  electors  and  elected 
in  the  next  General  Assembly"  followed,  by  which  Governor 
Rutledge's  proclamation  of  the  7th  of  September  and  17th 
of  November  was  recited  and  adopted,  and  their  provisions 
extended  to  the  next  election .^  An  act  of  considerable  im- 
portance, the  repeal  of  Avhich,  the  next  year,  was  the  subject 
of  an  unfortunate  interference  by  General  Green,  was  one 
vesting  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  power  to  levy 
duties  of  five  per  cent  ad  valorem,  on  certain  goods  and  mer- 
chandise imported  into  the  State,  and  on  prizes  and  prize 
goods  condemned  in  court  of  admiralty.^  And  an  act  was 
passed  for  furnishing  supplies  to  the  army  to  the  value  of 
373,598  Mexican  dollars,  being  the  quota  assigned  to  this 
State  of  the  Continental  estimates  for  the  year  1782.*  "  An 
act  to  procure  recruits  and  prevent  desertion"  provided  that 
every  able-bodied  recruit  of  the  proper  age,  who  should 
enlist  in  the  Continental  service  for  three  years,  or  during 
the  war,  should  receive  for  each  and  every  year's  service 
the  bounty  of  one  sound  negro  between  the  age  of  ten  and 
forty  years,  to  be  delivered  one  at  the  time  of  his  enlist- 
ment, another  at  the  time  of  the  second  year's  service,  and 
the  third  at  the  expiration  of  the  third  year's  service.  It 
was  provided  that,  if  any  such  recruit  should  die,  be  killed, 
or  maimed  after  the  commencement  of  the  third  year,  he 
or  his  heirs  should,  nevertheless,  be  entitled  to  receive  the 
same  bounty  as  if  he  had  served  out  the  third  year.  If  he 
deserted,  the  bounty  was  to  be  forfeited  to  the  use  of  the  State. 
A  bounty  of  a  negro  between  the  ages  above  mentioned  was 
also  offered  to  any  person  who  should  procure  twenty- 
five  recruits  within  two  months  after  the  passing  of  the 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  IV,  513.  3  Ibid.,  512. 

2/&id.,510.  ^Ibid.,b2o. 


674  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

act ;  a  like  gratuity  was  offered  to  any  person  who  should 
procure  thirty-five  recruits  to  enlist  within  three  months.^ 

Following  Governor  Rutledge's  recommendation,  Thomas 
Ferguson,  Morton  Wilkinson,  and  John  Ward  were  ap- 
pointed commissioners  for  purchasing  an  estate  to  the 
value  of  10,000  guineas  in  trust  for  the  Honorable 
Major-General  Nathanael  Greene,  and  the  faith  of  the 
State  was  pledged  for  the  fulfilling  of  any  contract  which 
should  be  made  by  the  commissioners  for  the  payment  of 
the  purchase  money .^  It  may  well  be  doubted  if  the  legis- 
lature would  have  been  so  prompt  in  awarding  this  gratu- 
ity had  it  been  known  at  the  time  that  the  return  of 
General  Greene  to  South  Carolina  had  not  been  of  his  own 
suggestion,  and  that  he  had  unwillingly  remained  in  the 
State  after  coming;  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  been 
about  to  abandon  it  again  after  the  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  and  had  only  been  prevented  from  doing  so  by  Lee's 
remonstrance,  and  Lord  Rawdon's  abandonment  of  Camden 
in  consequence  of  the  breaking  up  of  his  communications 
by  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee,  movements  which  he  had 
scarcely  sanctioned.  Lee's  story  had  not  then  been  told. 
Nor  were  Sumter  and  his  heroic  followers,  the  Hamptons, 
Taylors,  Lacey,  Hill,  and  Winn,  nor  Marion  with  the  Horrys, 
Postells,  McCottry,  James,  and  the  Vanderhorsts,  all  with 
seats  in  that  body,  aware  that  he  had  sneered  at  and  belittled 
their  services,  declaring  to  Governor  Reed  of  Pennsylvania 
that  they  and  their  gallant  and  patriotic  bands  had  been 
serving  more  from  a  desire  of  plunder  than  from  any  in- 
clination to  promote  the  independence  of  the  United  States. 
Had  all  this  been  known  at  the  time,  it  is  not  probable  that 
an  acre  of  land  or  a  dollar  of  money  would  have  been  voted 
him.  At  the  time  of  Rutledge's  recommendation  for  his  re- 
muneration, the  governor  believed  that  it  was  Greene's  mili- 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  IV,  513,  515.  2  /^j^^.^  515. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  675 

tary  genius  which  had  conceived  the  bold  policy  of  leaving 
Cornwallis  in  North  Carolina  and  moving  upon  Lord  Raw- 
don  in  this  State.  It  was  to  his  patient  constancy  to  this 
plan  that  was  attributed  the  redemption  of  the  State.  He 
was  held  up  by  his  friends  and  admirers  in  extravagant  lan- 
guage as  second  only  to  Washington ;  in  almost  blasphe- 
mous language  he  was  styled  "  deputy  Saviour."  ^  And  all 
this,  Sumter  and  Marion,  sitting  as  senators,  were  too  high- 
minded  to  challenge,  when  by  doing  so  they  would  bring 
in  their  own  services  in  competition  with  his.  Georgia  and 
North  Carolina,  not  to  be  outdone  in  expressions  of  grati- 
tude, voted  to  Greene,  also,  the  former  5000  guineas,  and 
the  latter  2400  acres  of  land.  But  the  general's  enjoyment 
of  these  extraordinary  marks  of  favor  was  not  without  alloy. 
The  effusions  of  congratulations  were  closely  followed  by 
bitter  complaints  at  the  neglect  and  unjustice  that  others 
than  the  generals  had  sustained.  Nor  was  it  long  after  these 
grants  were  made  before  reports  were  in  circulation  as 
injurious  as  those  which  had  once  before  assailed  his  moral 
character  whilst  in  the  quartermaster-general's  department. 
It  was  said  that  he  had  intrigued  with  the  legislature  to  ob- 
tain these  grants,  and  that  he  had  combined  with  a  mercan- 
tile house,  under  the  firm  name  of  Hunter,  Banks  &  Co.,  to 
participate  in  a  contract  for  the  supply  of  the  troops  and 
even  to  practise  upon  the  necessities  of  his  companions  in 
arms.2  It  is  very  probable  that  his  advice  that  the  legisla- 
ture should  assemble  at  some  place  under  the  immediate  pro- 
tection of  the  army  gave  color,  if  not  rise,  to  the  suspicion 
of  intrigue  with  the  body  as  to  the  grant ;  but,  as  it  has  been 
well  observed,  the  character  of  the  Assembly  was  in  itself 
:a  sufficient  answer  to  such  a  charge.     The  shadow  of  the 

1  "  The  Battle  of  Eutaw"  (General  J.  Watts  de  Peyster),  The  United 
Service  Magazine,  September,  1881. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  285,  286. 


676  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

latter  accusation  hung  over  him  for  the  remainder  of  his 
life,  though  it  is  not  probable  that  he  was  guilty  of  more 
than  indiscretion  in  regard  to  that  transaction. 
X  The  legislature  next  proceeded  to  the  most  serious  part 
of  its  business  :  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  avowed 
Tories,  and  the  amercement  of  those  who  had  withdrawn 
themselves  from  the  contest  and  accepted  protection  from  his 
Majesty's  forces.  The  justification  of  these  measures  was 
set  out  in  a  carefully  prepared  statement,  by  way  of  recital, 
to  the  first  of  these  acts.  It  is  here  given  in  full  as  the  pre- 
sentation of  the  views  of  those  who  enacted  the  law  —  a  law 
which  was  received  with  only  less  indignation  by  many  of  the 
truest  Whigs  than  by  the  Tories  who  suffered  under  it :  — 

"  Whereas,  the  thirteen  British  colonies  (now  the  United  States  of 
America)  were  by  an  act  of  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  passed  in 
or  about  the  month  of  December,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1775,  declared 
to  be  in  rebellion,  and  out  of  the  protection  of  the  British  Crown ;  and 
by  the  said  act  not  only  the  property  of  the  colonists  was  declared 
subject  to  seizure  and  condemnation,  but  divers  seizures  and  destruc- 
tion of  their  property  having  been  made  after  the  19th  day  of  April 
1775,  and  before  the  passing  of  the  said  act,  such  seizure  and  destruc- 
tion were,  by  the  said  act,  declared  to  be  lawful ;  and  whereas,  the  good 
people  of  these  States,  having  not  only  suffered  great  losses  and  dam- 
ages by  captures  of  their  property  on  the  sea,  by  the  subjects  of  his 
Britannic  Majesty,  but  by  their  seizing  and  carrying  off  much  property 
taken  on  the  land;  in  consequence  of  such  proceedings  of  the  British 
Crown,  and  those  acting  under  its  authority,  the  honorable  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  after  due  and  mature  consideration,  authorized  the 
seizing  and  condemnation  of  all  property  found  on  the  sea,  and  belong- 
ing to  the  subjects  of  Great  Britain,  and  recommended  to  the  several 
States  in  which  such  subjects  had  property,  to  confiscate  the  same  for 
public  use ;  all  political  connexion  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  having  been  dissolved  by  the  separation  of  these  States 
from  that  kingdom  and  then  declaring  themselves  free  and  independent 
of  her ;  in  pursuance  of  which  recommendation  most  (if  not  all)  have 
disposed  of  such  property  for  the  public  use ;  and  whereas,  notwith- 
standing the  State  has  forborne  even  to  sequester  the  profits  arising 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  677 

from  the  estates  of  British  subjects,  the  enemy,  in  violation  of  the 
most  solemn  capitulations  and  public  engagements,  by  which  the 
property  of  individuals  was  secured  to  them,  seized  upon,  sequestered, 
and  applied  to  their  own  use,  not  only  in  several  instances  the  profits 
of  the  estates,  but  in  other  instances  the  estates  themselves,  of  the  good 
citizens  of  the  State,  and  have  committed  the  most  wanton  and  wil- 
ful waste  of  property,  both  real  and  personal,  to  a  very  considerable 
amount;  and  whereas,  from  a  proclamation  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton, 
declaring  that  if  any  person  should  appear  in  arms  in  order  to  permit 
the  establishment  of  his  Britannic  Majesty's  government  in  this  country, 
such  person  should  be  treated  with  the  utmost  severity,  and  their 
estates  be  immediately  seized  in  order  to  be  confiscated ;  and  whereas 
from  a  letter  of  Lord  Rawdon  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Rugely  declar- 
ing that  every  militiaman  who  did  not  use  his  utmost  endeavors  to 
apprehend  deserters  should  be  punished  in  such  manner  as  his  lordship 
should  think  adequate  to  such  offence,  by  whipping,  imprisonment,  or 
being  sent  to  serve  his  Britannic  Majesty  in  the  West  Indies ;  from 
the  Earl  Cornwallis's  letter  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Cruger,  bearing  date 
the  18th  of  August,  1780,  declaring  that  he  had  given  orders  that  all  the 
inhabitants  who  had  submitted,  and  who  had  taken  part  wdth  their 
countrymen  in  the  first  action  near  Camden  (although  such  submis- 
sion was  an  act  of  force  or  necessity)  should  be  punished  with  the 
greatest  rigor,  that  they  should  be  imprisoned,  and  their  whole  prop- 
erty taken  from  them  or  destroyed ;  and  that  he  had  ordered  in  the 
most  positive  manner,  that  every  militiaman  who  had  borne  arms  on 
the  part  of  his  Britannic  Majesty,  and  who  had  afterward  joined  their 
fellow  citizens  (although  he  had  been  compelled  to  take  up  arms 
against  them),  should  be  immediately  hanged;  and  ordering  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Cruger  to  obey  these  directions  in  the  district  which  he 
commanded,  in  the  strictest  manner ;  and  from  the  general  tenor  of  the 
enemy's  conduct,  in  their  wilful  and  wanton  waste  and  destruction  of 
property  as  aforesaid,  committing  to  a  cruel  imprisonment,  and  even 
hanging,  and  otherwise  putting  to  death  in  cold  blood,  and  an  igno- 
minious manner,  many  good  citizens  who  had  surrendered  as  prisoners 
of  war ;  it  is  evident  that  it  was  the  fixed  determination  of  the  enemy, 
notwithstanding  their  profession  to  the  contrary,  to  treat  this  State  as 
a  conquered  country;  and  that  the  inhabitants  were  to  expect  the  ut- 
most severities,  and  to  hold  their  lives,  liberties,  and  properties,  solely 
at  the  will  of  his  Britannic  Majesty's  officers  ;  and  it  is  therefore  incon- 
sistent with  public  justice  and  policy,  to  afford  protection  any  longer 

VOL.  IV.  —  2  P 


678  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  the  property  of  British  subjects,  and  just  and  reasonable  to  apply 
the  same  toward  alleviating  and  lessening  the  burdens  and  expenses  of 
the  war,  which  must  otherwise  fall  very  heavy  on  the  distressed  inhabit- 
ants of  the  State." 

Having  thus  stated  the  causes  and  justification  of  the 
act,  the  persons  to  be  affected  by  its  provisions  were  divided 
into  six  classes,  upon  lists  as  follows :  — 

List  No.  1  contained  the  names  (1)  of  those  known  to 
be  subjects  of  his  Britannic  Majesty,  and  (2)  of  those  who 
went  over  to  and  took  up  arms  with  the  enemy,  and  failed  to 
come  in  and  surrender  themselves  as  required  by  procla- 
mation of  the  governor  in  pursuance  of  an  ordinance  of 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  20th  of  February,  1779. 

List  No.  2  was  of  those  who,  upon  the  surrender  of 
Charlestown,  had  congratulated  Sir  Henry  Clinton  and 
Admiral  Arbuthnot  on  its  reduction. 

List  No.  3  was  of  those  who  had  voluntarily  embodied 
and  served  in  the  Royal  militia. 

List  No.  4  was  of  those  who  had  congratulated  the  Earl 
Cornwallis  on  his  victory  at  Camden. 

List  No.  5  was  of  those  who  then  held,  or  had  held, 
commissions  under  his  Britannic  Majesty,  and  were  then 
with  the  enemy. 

List  No.  6  was  of  those  who  had  not  only  voluntarily 
avowed  their  allegiance  to  his  Britannic  Majesty,  but  by  the 
general  tenor  of  their  conduct  had  manifested  their  attach- 
ment to  the  British  government,  and  proved  themselves 
inveterate  enemies  of  the  State. 

The  property,  real  and  personal,  of  the  persons  men- 
tioned in  the  six  lists  was  vested  in  commissioners  appointed 
under  the  act,  who  were  directed  to  sell  and  dispose  of  the 
same  at  auction  on  five  years'  credit.  The  act  went  on 
also  to  provide  that,  although  the  lives  as  well  as  the  for- 
tunes of  the  persons  mentioned  in  the  lists  numbered  2,  3, 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  579 

4,  and  5  were  by  law  forfeited,  yet,  in  order  to  avoid,  if 
possible,  sanguinary  measures,  and  to  extend  to  such  per- 
sons such  mercy  as  might  be  consistent  with  justice  to  the 
public,  instead  of  inflicting  capital  punishment,  they  were 
declared  to  be  forever  banished  from  the  State  upon  the 
penalty  of  death  without  benefit  of  clergy  should  they 
return.  The  commissioners  were,  however,  allowed  on 
the  credit  of  the  estates  directed  to  be  sold,  to  make  such 
provision  for  the  temporary  support  of  such  of  the  families 
of  the  persons  mentioned  on  the  lists  numbered  2,  3,  4,  5, 
and  6  as  should  appear  to  the  commissioners  necessary.  A 
provision  in  the  act  directed  that,  before  the  commissioners 
sold  any  of  the  slaves  belonging  to  these  persons,  a  sufficient 
number  should  be  set  aside  for  the  payment  of  the  bounties 
promised  to  the  recruits  for  the  Continental  troops,  and 
440  male  slaves  belonging  to  such  persons,  which  should  be 
fit  and  proper  for  the  use  of  the  Continental  army  as  pioneers, 
wagon  drivers,  artificers,  and  officers'  servants  were  to  be 
employed  in  those  several  occupations  so  long  as  they  were 
wanted  for  the  public  service.  They  were  likewise  to  set 
aside  such  horses,  cattle,  wagons,  and  provisions  as  should 
be  needed  for  the  use  of  the  army.  In  order,  however,  to 
raise  a  sum  of  money  in  specie  necessary  for  the  service 
of  the  State,  the  governor  was  authorized  to  sell  for  ready 
money  not  exceeding  150  slaves,  the  slaves  to  be  sold  in 
families.^ 

Such  was  the  famous  act.  It  was  followed  by  another  en- 
titled, "  An  act  for  amercing  certain  persons  named  therein."  ^ 
This  act  thus  declared  in  preamble  its  purpose :  — • 

"  Whereas,  many  persons,  inhabitants  of,  and  owing  allegiance  to 
the  State  (some  bearing  high  and  important  trusts  and  commissions), 
have  withdrawn  themselves  from  the  defence  thereof,  accepted  pro- 
tection from  the  officers  commanding  his  Britannic  Majesty's  forces, 
1  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  IV,  516,  522.  2  tj^-^,^  523. 


580  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

now  carrying  on  a  cruel  and  destructive  war  within  this  State,  and  are 
either  within  the  lines  of  the  enemy,  or  have  omitted  to  surrender  and  en- 
roll themselves  and  perform  the  duties  to  their  country  pointed  out  and 
required  by  the  proclamation  of  his  Excellency,  the  Governor,  dated  the 
twenty-seventh  day  of  September  last  past,  in  utter  neglect  and  con- 
tempt of  the  executive  authority  of  the  said  State,  and  to  tiie  evil  exam- 
ple of  society.  And  whereas,  there  are  others,  who,  forgetting  all  the 
social  ties  of  kindred,  the  feeling  of  humanity,  and  regardless  of  the  duty 
and  allegiance  they  had  most  solemnly  sworn  to  their  country,  did 
actually  subscribe  and  pay  by  themselves  or  agents,  considerable  sums 
of  money  towards  mounting  and  equipping  a  troop  or  troops  of  cavalry, 
or  other  military  force  for  the  service  of  his  Britannic  Majesty,  to  act 
against  their  fellow  citizens,  and  the  independence  and  freedom  of 
this  State ;  and  whereas,  it  is  but  just  and  reasonable  that  the  estates 
of  such  persons,  both  real  and  personal,  should  be  amerced,  and  that 
a  due  discrimination  should  be  made." 

The  commissioners  appointed  for  carrying  into  execution 
the  Confiscation  Act  were  required  within  four  months 
to  make  an  inventory  of  the  real  and  personal  estates  of 
the  persons  named  in  the  list  annexed  to  the  act,  and  to 
amerce  them  twelve  per  cent  on  the  actual  value  for  the 
use  of  the  State. 

The  preambles  of  these  acts  are  given  in  full,  as  they  de- 
clare the  reasons  for  their  passage,  assigned  by  those  who 
enacted  them.  These  reasons  amounted  to  nothing  more 
than  the  right  and  justice  of  retaliation,  which,  as  against 
willing  and  avowed  British  subjects  and  adherents,  was 
certainly  justified  as  a  measure  of  war.  But  herein  lay 
the  difficulty  of  the  matter,  i.e.,  to  determine  definitely  and 
justly  who  were  really  willing  subjects  and  adherents  of 
the  Royal  cause.  Still  more  so  in  regard  to  those  who  had 
merely  taken  protection.  Both  measures  were  earnestly 
opposed  by  a  minority  led  by  the  heroic  Christopher  Gads- 
den, who,  notwithstanding  his  long  imprisonment  in  the 
castle  of  St.  Augustine,  and  the  immense  loss  of  his  prop- 
erty, opposed  the  confiscation  of  the  estates  even  of  the 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  581 

adherents  of  the  British  government,  and  zealously  con- 
tended that  sound  policy  required  to  forget  and  forgive.^ 
The  Confiscation  Bill,  he  said,  "was  like  an  auto  dafe^  a 
sort  of  proceeding  used  in  Portugal  against  heretics,  where 
they  are  dressed  in  frocks  painted  over  with  figures  of 
fiends  and  devils,  to  excite  a  horror  against  them  in  the 
multitude."  2 

It  was  urged  that  the  act  was  one  of  condemnation 
without  hearing  or  trial.  No  crime  was  alleged,  no  article 
of  charge  given  in  against  any  of  the  persons  named,  no 
accusation  entered  on  the  journals  of  either  House.  At 
the  time  the  Assembly  was  taking  his  property  from  the 
citizen,  the  unhappy  man  was  in  Charlestown,  struggling 
under  the  pressure  of  necessity  in  getting  the  common 
necessaries  of  life,  and  suffering  under  British  tyranny 
from  which  the  State  had  not  been  able  to  shield  him.  A 
report  or  idle  story,  an  old  grudge,  revenge,  or  malice, 
supplied  the  place  of  legal  accusation,  of  evidence,  of  judge 
and  jury.  History  had  branded  with  infamy  the  instances 
in  which  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  had  condemned 
subjects  without  trial  or  examination.  But  condemnation 
without  a  hearing  was  not  the  only  objection ;  the  bill  pro- 
posed an  ex  post  facto  law.  Taking  protection  from  a 
conqueror  who  was  in  possession  of  the  country,  or  signing 
a  congratulation  was  no  offence  against  any  law  of  the 
State.  Allegiance  and  protection  were  reciprocal.  When 
the  governor  had  sought  his  safety  in  flight,  and  all  other 
civil  officers  were  either  fugitives  or  prisoners,  when  there 
was  no  other  organized  armed  force  in  the  State  but  that 
of  the  enemy,  the  citizen  was  under  necessity  of  accepting 
protection  from  the  conqueror,  nor  could  all  be  blamed 
who,  under  the  pressure  of  their  situation,  signed  papers  of 
congratulation  or  even  contributed  money  to  the  enemy  — 

1  Ramsay's  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  464.  2  u  Cassius,"  p.  18. 


682  HISTORY   OP   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

such  addresses  and  contributions  were  not  always  as  volun- 
tary as  they  appeared  to  be. 

Still  stronger  was  the  objection  to  the  Amercement  Act. 
It  was  charged  that  a  great  majority  of  the  Assembly  it- 
self were  men  who  had  at  some  time  taken  protection, 
but  who,  from  circumstances,  had  been  enabled  to  accept 
of  the  terms  of  Governor  Rutledge's  proclamation.  Were 
others,  who  had  not  been  so  fortunately  circumstanced, 
now  to  be  punished  by  amercement?  In  all  countries 
overrun  by  an  invading  and  victorious  army,  it  was  said, 
nothing  was  more  common  than  to  raise  what  is  called 
contributions  for  the  support  of  it,  and  in  cities  and  civil- 
ized places,  to  make  the  matter  easy  to  the  people,  or  from 
an  affectation  of  politeness  which  soldiers  of  fortune  some- 
times put  on,  with  the  bayonet  at  your  breast,  the  thing 
is  generally  done  by  subscription ;  and  we  afford  the  first 
example  of  such  contribution  being  charged  as  a  crime. 
Those  in  Charlestown  who  subscribed  for  the  British  cav- 
alry were  some  of  them  volunteers  for  raising  a  force 
against  us ;  but  this  was  not  the  case  with  all  of  them,  it 
was  believed.  The  citizen  was  under  the  yoke  of  a  tyrant 
who  had  a  thousand  ways  of  doing  him  mischief.  To  such 
people  the  subscribing  to  British  cavalry  was  another  name 
for  contribution.  It  was  done,  perhaps,  under  the  highest 
necessity  and  compulsion.  To  make  that  a  crime,  there- 
fore, by  a  retrospective  law  which  was  none  before,  and 
condemn  to  forfeiture  of  their  property,  was  ex  post  facto 
arbitrary  and  unconstitutional.^ 

Such  considerations  might  possibly  have  prevailed  had 
the  reasons  put  forth  in  the  preambles  to  the  acts  been  the 
real  motives  for  their  enactment.  But  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  revenue  and  not  retaliation  was  the  real  induce- 
ment of  the  measures.  General  Marion  writes  to  Colonel 
1  "  Cassius,"  p.  44. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  683 

Peter  Horry  on  the  10th  of  February :  "  Two  regiments 
are  to  be  raised  as  our  Continental  quota,  giving  each  man 
a  negro  per  year,  which  is  to  be  taken  from  the  confiscated 
estates.  A  number  of  large  estates  are  down  on  the  list 
and  others  are  amerced,  which  will  give  in  at  least  a  mill- 
ion sterling  as  a  fund."  ^  Marion  himself  was  known  to 
have  been  opposed  during  the  whole  war  to  all  acts  of 
cruelty  to  and  vengeance  upon  the  Tories,  and  constantly 
to  have  borne  in  mind  and  urged  upon  his  followers  that, 
however  the  war  might  end,  Whigs  and  Tories  must  be 
fellow-countrymen,  and  that  it  was  policy  as  well  as  duty 
to  forbear  from  all  unnecessary  acts  of  severity  which 
might  in  the  future  impede  a  reconciliation  of  fellow-citi- 
zens and  brethren.  Indeed,  he  is  said,  but  on  doubtful 
authority,  to  have  given  as  a  toast  at  a  large  party  at  Gov- 
ernor Mathews's  table  just  after  its  passage,  "  Here  is 
damnation  to  the  confiscation  acty'^  Johnson  states  that 
the  most  efficacious  reason  for  adopting  the  measure  was 
that  the  State  was  wholly  destitute  of  funds,  and  the 
Whig  population  so  stripped  and  impoverished  as  to  put 
it  out  of  the  power  of  government  to  raise  any  immediate 
resources,  either  by  loan  or  taxation ;  and  that  the  estates 
of  the  Loyalists  were  therefore  seized  upon  as  a  means  of 
establishing  a  capital  to  build  a  present  credit  upon.^ 

It  is  very  doubtful,  however,  whether  the  result  as  a  finan- 
cial measure  justified  an  act  otherwise  so  impolitic.  It  was 
charged,  as  must  have  been  expected,  that  great  injustice 
and  partiality  were  indulged  in  the  details  of  the  act.  That 
the  members  of  this  popular  Assembly,  acting  in  different 
characters  of  legislators  and  judges,  in  proceeding  to  confis- 
cation and  banishment,  put  in  enemies  and  kept  out  friends, 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  174. 

2  Weems's  Life  of  Marion,  291. 

3  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  283. 


684  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

and  gave  loose  rein  to  malice,  avarice,  and  revenge.  Indeed, 
it  was  alleged  that  in  many  instances  this  was  carried  to 
extraordinary  lengths.  An  instance  was  cited  of  a  well- 
known  gentleman,  member  of  the  Assembly  itself,  who 
would  have  been  banished  and  his  estate  forfeited  had  not 
some  friend  secreted  the  slip  of  paper  on  which  his  name 
was  inserted.  ^ 

In  the  lists  appended  to  these  acts  as  published  in  the 
Statutes'^  there  appear  the  names  of  239  persons  whose 
estates  were  confiscated  and  of  47  whose  estates  were 
amerced.  But  upon  an  examination  of  these  lists,  and  com- 
paring them  with  the  lists  of  the  210  who  did  sign  the 
address  of  congratulation  to  the  British  commanders, 
"  the  addressors,"  as  they  were  called,  all  of  whose  estates 
were  confiscated  by  the  act,  it  is  manifest  the  published  lists 
as  appended  to  the  statute  are  not  correct.  List  No.  2, 
purporting  to  contain  the  names  of  "  the  addressors,"  con- 
tains but  43  names  out  of  the  210.  This  discrepancy  may, 
it  is  true,  be  accounted  for,  in  a  measure,  by  the  fact  that 
not  all  of  the  addressors  were  possessed  of  estates  to  be 
confiscated.  But  that  this  consideration  does  not  entirely 
account  for  the  difference  appears  from  the  fact  that  in  the 
list  appended  to  the  act  of  1784  for  restoring  to  the  per- 
sons therein  mentioned  their  estates,^  the  names  of  several 
"  addressors  "  appear  whose  names  are  not  appended  to  the 
Confiscation  Act  itself.  So,  too,  the  same  observation  applies 
to  other  lists ;  names  appear  upon  the  restoration  lists  which 
do  not  appear  upon  the  original  confiscation  lists. 

The  lists  appended  to  the  acts  are  remarkable  for  the 
names  that  do  not  appear  upon  them.  This  is  par- 
ticularly the  case  with  List  No.  1  to  the  Confiscation  Act, 

i"Cassms,"  p.  39. 

2  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  VI,  629-635. 

« Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  IV,  624  ;  vol.  VI,  634. 


IN  THE  KBYOLUTION  686 

which  purports  to  contain  the  names  of  the  known  sub- 
jects of  his  Britannic  Majesty.  Conspicuous  from  its 
absence  is  that  of  William  Bull,  whose  unshaken  fidelity 
to  his  king  was  so  open  and  avowed.  Still  honored  and 
loved,  however,  by  all,  it  was  perhaps  impolitic,  if  not 
impossible,  to  have  placed  his  name  upon  the  list,  especially 
after  his  generous  and  spirited  appeal  for  the  life  of 
Hayne.  But  there  were  others,  the  absence  of  which  is 
not  easily  explained.  We  do  not  find  the  name  of  Thomas 
Skottowe,^  the  member  of  Council  who  had  refused  to 
appear  before  the  General  Committee  in  1775,  and  had 
been  consequently  banished,  but  had  returned  during  the 
British  rule ;  nor  of  James  Simpson,  the  attorney-general, 
who  had  been  banished  with  Skottowe  and  likewise  re- 
turned, and  had  occupied  the  position  of  intendant  of 
police  under  the  British  military  government;  nor  of 
Colonel  Innis,  who  had  raised  a  regiment  which  he  had 
conspicuously  commanded  against  the  Americans ;  nor 
of  Colonel  Probart  Howarth,  governor  of  Fort  Johnson, 
nor  of  George  Roupell,  the  postmaster,  —  the  last  three  of 
whom  had,  like  Skottowe  and  Simpson,  been  banished 
in  1775. 

But  even  still  more  remarkable  is  the  fact  that, 
though  the  legislature  was  composed  largely  of  Low- 
Country  men,  out  of  the  239  persons  whose  estates 
were  confiscated,  but  10  were  of  the  Up-Country.  These 
were  Andrew  and  John  Cuningham  and  Colonel  Clary 
of  Ninety  Six,  Captain  Anderson  of  Thicketty  Creek, 
William  Guest  of  Tyger  River,  William  Stevens  of 
Saluda,  George  Grierson  of  Waxhaws,  Julin  George  of 
New  Acquisition  (York),  and  William  Valentine  of  Cam- 

1  That  Samuel  Skottowe  had  adhered  to  the  American  cause  and  had 
endured  confinement  on  prison  ship  may  possibly  have  saved  the  estate 
of  his  relative. 


586  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

den.  In  the  district  of  Ninety  Six  and  in  that  between 
the  Saluda  and  Broad,  the  Tories  far  outnumbered  the 
Whigs,  and  many  had  borne  militia  commissions  in  the 
British  service.  How  was  it  that  the  fine  estate  of 
Colonel  Fletchall  at  Fair  Forest,  with  its  famous  mill,  was 
not  confiscated,  while  both  those  of  Elias  Ball  (of  Wam- 
baw)  and  Elias  Ball  (of  Comingtee)  were  taken  ?  Why 
is  it  that  with  Colonel  Clary  we  do  not  find  the  names 
of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Philips,  Lieutenant-Colonel  W.  T. 
Turner,  and  Majors  Daniel  Plummer,  Zachariah  Gibbs,  and 
John  Hamilton,  who  with  him  bore  British  militia  commis- 
sions. Surely  some  of  these  must  have  possessed  estates 
equal  in  value  to  those  of  William  Cameron  the  cooper, 
James  Duncan  the  blacksmith,  John  Fisher  the  cabinet- 
maker, and  John  Ward  the  tailor,  whose  estates  in 
Charlestown  were  confiscated.^ 

The  list  appended  to  the  Amercement  Act  strongly 
corroborates  the  charge  of  partiality  in  its  application. 
On  September  19,  1780,  the  British  authorities  published 
a  list  of  168  persons  who  had  petitioned  for  protection, 
and  who  were  notified  to  appear  before  the  intendant 
of  police  to  subscribe  the  declaration  of  allegiance, 
and  to  receive  their  certificates.^  A  similar  notice 
appears  in  The  Royal  G-azette  of  the  11th  of  July,  1781, 
to  which  is  appended  the  names  of  213  more.  There 
were  thus  381  persons  publicly  announced  as  having 
accepted  protection.  The  Amercement  Act,  which  by 
its  terms   was   to   apply   not   only  to  those  who  had  ac- 

1  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  as  the  triumphant  Whigs,  upon  the  re- 
covery of  the  government  of  the  State  in  1782,  confiscating  the  estates  of 
the  Loyalists,  restricted  their  doing  so  to  those  of  the  Loyalists  on  the 
coast,  so  upon  their  overthrow  of  the  Confederacy  in  1865  the  Federal 
government  likewise  restricted  its  practical  confiscation  to  those  of 
Confederates  in  the  same  region. 

2  8o.  Ca.  and  Am.  Gen.  Gazette. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  587 

cepted  protection,  but  to  those  also  who  had  subscribed 
to  the  equipping  of  a  troop  of  cavalry  for  the  British 
service,  punished  only  47  of  the  381.  The  same  ob- 
servation as  that  just  made  in  regard  to  the  Confisca- 
tion Act  doubtless  would  account  in  some  measure  at 
least  for  this  discrepancy,  namely,  that  those  who  had 
no  estates  were  not  amerced.  But  this  does  not  fully 
explain  the  great  difference.  The  preamble  of  the  act 
recites  as  an  aggravation  in  some  instances  of  the  accept- 
ing of  protection,  that  the  person  who  did  so  had  borne 
high  and  important  trusts  or  commissions  under  the  State, 
but  in  the  list  under  the  act  the  only  persons  named 
who  could  come  under  this  description  were  Colonel 
Daniel  Horry,  who  had  commanded  the  regiment  of 
dragoons  raised  in  1779,  Colonel  Maurice  Simons,  who 
had  commanded  the  militia  in  Charlestown  during  the 
siege,  Colonels  John  Harleston  and  Joseph  Jenkins,  also 
of  the  militia,  and  Colonel  Charles  Pinckney,  member  of 
the  Council  who  had  gone  out  with  Governor  Rutledge 
from  the  town  before  its  fall.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do 
not  find  in  the  list  of  those  amerced  the  names  of  Henry 
Middleton  and  Rawlins  Lowndes,  who  gave  up  the  con- 
test and  took  protection  when  Charlestown  fell,  nor  of 
Daniel  Huger,  who,  like  Charles  Pinckney,  having  gone 
out  with  Governor  Rutledge  as  a  member  of  the  Council, 
returned  and  submitted  to  the  enemy.  The  case  of 
Colonel  Charles  Pinckney  was  a  hard  one,  for  he  had  all 
along,  from  the  beginning  in  1775,  been  hurried  on  faster 
and  farther  than  he  had  been  disposed  to  go  in  the  re- 
bellion, as  was  particularly  shown  in  his  correspondence 
with  General  Moultrie  in  1779.  He  did  not,  however,  long 
survive  the  mortification.  He  died  in  the  September 
following.! 

1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  September  28,  1782. 


588  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

The  protest  of  "  Cassius  "  produced  good  fruit.  In  1783 
—  the  year  after  —  the  provisions  of  the  Confiscation  Act 
were  so  modified  that  seventy-seven  persons  who  had  been 
banished  by  it  were  allowed  to  return  upon  certain  condi- 
tions, and  the  sale  of  their  estates  was  suspended.^  The 
next  year  another  act  was  passed  by  which  the  estates  of 
sixty-two  were  taken  off  the  confiscation  list  and  amerced ; 
thirty  more  were  entirely  released,  and  the  persons  whose 
estates  had  been  sold  were  indemnified.  The  names  of 
thirty-three  others  were  also  taken  off  the  confiscation  list 
and  amerced,  but  were  disqualified  from  holding  any  office 
or  trust  for  a  term  of  seven  years.^  From  this  time  forth 
almost  every  legislature  restored  some  part  of  the  confis- 
cated property  to  the  different  former  owners  or  their 
descendants,  and  their  return  to  the  country  was  wel- 
comed.^ As  measures  of  revenue  for  which  these  acts 
were  passed  they  accomplished  nothing  to  compensate  for 
the  ill  feeling  they  aroused. 

The  legislature,  having  adopted  these  measures,  ad- 
journed on  the  26th  of  February,  1782. 

1  Statutes  at  Large ^  vol.  IV,  653. 

^Ibid.,  639-666,  687,  699-721 ;  Curwin's  Journal  and  Letters,  670. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

1782 

The  beginning  of  the  year  1781  found  the  British 
forces  upon  the  northern  confines  of  the  State  preparing 
to  advance  into  North  Carolina  and  Virginia,  regarding 
this  State  as  already  subjugated.  The  beginning  of  the 
year  1782  found  the  conquerors  driven  back,  and  confined 
to  Charlestown  Neck  and  James  Island. 

Soon  after  General  Greene  had  taken  post  at  Round  O, 
General  Leslie,  who  was  now  in  command  in  Charlestown, 
began  to  feel  seriously  the  effects  of  the  restriction  of  his 
foraging  ground.  The  driving  in  of  his  detachments  and 
the  crowding  of  refugees  witliin  his  restricted  lines  caused 
an  accumulation  of  horses  for  which  he  was  unable  to 
procure  forage.  His  necessities  on  this  account  compelled 
him  to  put  two  hundred  of  these  useful  animals  to  death. 
To  relieve  this  distress,  strong  parties  were  kept  on  the 
alert,  watching  for  opportunities  of  collecting  provisions 
from  the  surrounding  country.  As  starting  points  for  these 
raiders,  posts  were  established  on  the  extreme  tongues 
of  land  at  Haddrell's  Point  and  Hobcaw  in  Christ  Church 
Parish  and  Daniel's  Island  in  St.  Thomas's  opposite  the 
city,  from  which  retreat  was  difficult  to  an  attacking 
enemy,  and  to  which  reenforcements  could  easily  be  con- 
veyed by  water.  These  points,  now  the  last  held  by  the 
British,  it  will  be  observed,  were  just  those  the  last  held 
by  the  Americans  during  the  siege  of  the  city  in  1780  — 

589 


690  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

the  positions  of  the  parties  being  exactly  reversed.  To 
cover  the  communication  with  these  posts,  galleys  lay  in 
the  rivers  at  convenient  distances.  During  the  winter 
several  brilliant  and  successful  sallies  were  made  from 
these  positions.  The  first  of  these  was  by  Major  CofQn, 
the  hero  of  Eutaw,  and  the  captor  of  Armstrong. 

On  the  American  side  a  post  was  established  at  Cainhoy, 
at  the  head  of  navigation  of  Wando  River,  about  twelve 
miles  from  Charlestown,  which  was  now  under  the  com- 
mand of  Colonel  Richard  Richardson.  A  British  galley 
lay  in  the  Wando,  which  was  an  object  of  observation  to 
Colonel  Richardson,  who  patrolled  the  road  from  Cainhoy 
on  the  St.  Thomas  side  of  the  river  to  Daniel's  Island,  the 
northern  point  formed  by  the  junction  of  the  Wando  and 
Cooper  rivers.  On  the  2d  of  January  Major  Coffin  with  a 
detachment  of  about  350  men,  cavalry  and  infantry,  were 
transported  from  Charlestown  by  water  to  Daniel's  Island.^ 
Colonel  Richardson,  learning  of  this  movement  from  his  pa- 
trols, immediately  pushed  his  scouts  to  the  causeway  over 
Beresford  Creek,  which,  with  the  Wando  and  Cooper,  forms 
Daniel's  Island,  and  wrote  to  Marion  for  reenforcements. 
Marion's  force  scarcely  equalled  that  of  the  enemy,  but 
he  resolved  to  advance  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  them. 
To  detain  them  while  he  should  come  up  with  his  main 
body,  he  ordered  Colonel  Richardson  and  a  part  of 
Maham's  newly  raised  horse  to  throw  themselves  in  front 
of  the  enemy  and  engage  them  until  he  reached  them. 
Maham  did  not  himself  come  with  his  cavalry;  they  were 
under  the  command  of  Major  Giles. 

The  British  advanced,  taking  the  Strawberry  road,  and, 
crossing  Beresford  Creek,  about  noon  reached  Brabant,  a  plan- 
tation belonging  to  the  Rev.  Robert  Smith,  about  fourteen 
miles  distant.     To  the  north  of  this  plantation  was  a  swamp 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  303  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion^  168, 
159. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  591 

of  considerable  width  with  a  causeway  and  a  bridge  known 
as  Videau's.  Beyond  the  causeway,  on  the  east,  was  a 
fence  on  a  bank  with  a  ditch  behind  it.  Richardson  passed 
the  swamp,  and,  going  down  to  the  bank  to  reconnoitre, 
came  back  with  a  British  troop  and  Captain  Campbell  at 
liis  heels.  Upon  reaching  his  command,  Richardson  at 
once  ordered  a  charge.  From  the  outset  it  was  easy  to 
see  that  Maham's  new  corps  had  not  yet  been  trained. 
They  charged  in  disorder,  but  at  first  drove  the  British 
cavalry  before  them.  At  the  bridge  they  met  the  British 
infantry,  who  gave  them  a  volley.  All  was  at  once  in  con- 
fusion, horses  and  men  wedged  together  upon  a  narrow 
causeway,  the  front  striving  to  retreat  and  the  rear  push- 
ing them  on.  The  British  cavalry  now  came  in  aid  of  the 
infantry,  and  a  total  rout  of  the  Americans  and  scene  of 
carnage  ensued.  Captain  Samuel  Cooper,  one  of  Maham's 
officers,  rallied  his  men,  and,  returning  to  the  road,  saved 
several  lives  and  drove  back  a  part  of  the  British  cavalry. 
Maham's  men  suffered  particularly;  being  on  the  road  when 
the  rout  commenced,  they  were  trampled  down  by  both 
parties.  Among  the  creditable  feats  of  the  day  was  that  of 
Captain  Bennett,  who  with  twelve  men  having  been  pur- 
sued by  a  party  of  the  enemy  double  their  number,  and 
stopped  by  an  impassable  creek,  turned  upon  his  pursuers 
and  drove  them  back.  Another  was  that  of  G.  Sinclair 
Capers,  who  took  three  swords  from  the  British  in  single 
encounters,  for  which  General  Marion  promoted  him  to  a 
lieutenancy.  Had  Richardson  posted  his  militia  behind  the 
fence,  his  defeat  might  have  been  prevented.  The  Ameri- 
cans admitted  that  twenty-two  of  their  men  were  buried  on 
the  causeway;  how  many  were  killed  in  the  pursuit  was 
not  known.  TJie  Royal  G-azette  of  tlie  5th  of  January  esti- 
mated the  loss  of  the  Americans  at  fifty-seven  killed  and 
twenty  taken  prisoners.     That  of  the  9th  of  January  rep- 


592  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

resented  the  loss  of  the  rebels  in  killed,  disabled,  and 
prisoners  as  upwards  of  ninety,  a  large  proportion  of  whom, 
it  stated,  were  those  who  had  reverted  to  the  American 
cause  contrary  to  their  most  solemn  engagements  as 
British  subjects.  The  British  loss  was  but  one  officer 
killed  and  a  dragoon  wounded.  The  officer  killed  was 
Captain  Campbell,  known  as  "Mad  Archy,"  he  who  had 
captured  Colonel  Hayne  in  the  July  before.^     The  defeat 

1  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  Traditions  of  the  Eevolution,  p.  67,  mentions  this 
officer  among  the  numerous  British  officers  in  America  of  the  name  of 
Campbell,  and  relates  the  following  story  of  him  :  — 

"  Of  Mad  Archy,  or  Mad  Campbell,  we  know  nothing,  except  while  the 
British  occupied  Charleston  ;  we  believe  that  this  appellation  was  given 
him  by  his  brother  officers.  An  instance  of  Campbell's  violence  of  temper 
was  told  to  a  lady  still  living  (1851)  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Ellington,  rector 
of  St.  James's,  Goose  Creek.  Captain  Campbell  once  drove  up  to  his  house 
accompanied  by  a  young  lady,  who  appeared  agitated  or  alarmed  ;  he 
called  for  the  reverend  gentleman  to  come  out  to  him  and  asked  to  be  mar- 
ried to  this  lady.  '  Yes,'  was  the  answer,  '  with  her  consent  and  that  of  her 
friends.'  Campbell  then  drew  his  pistols  and  swore  that  he  should  marry 
them  or  be  put  to  death  immediately.  Such  was  the  character  and  deport- 
ment of  Campbell  that  the  minister  did  not  dare  to  refuse  ;  he  married 
them,  and  it  proved  to  be  a  case  of  abduction.  The  lady  was  Paulina 
Phelp,  of  one  of  the  most  respectable  families  in  the  State.  She  told  her 
friends  that  when  Campbell  was  particular  in  his  attentions,  and  flattered 
her,  she  had  considered  it  nothing  more  than  what  all  the  British  officers 
•were  in  the  habit  of  saying  and  doing,  and  supposed  that  Captain  Campbell 
meant  no  more  to  her.  That  she  had  never  promised  to  marry  him  or  in- 
tended to  do  so,  and  never  consented  except  when  terrified." 

Mrs.  Campbell  survived  her  husband  but  a  few  days.  The  Boyal  Gazette 
of  January  6,  1782,  announces  the  death  of  Captain  Campbell ;  that  of 
the  12th  contains  this  notice  :  — 

"  Death.  —  Mrs.  Margaret  Campbell,  widow  of  Cap'  Archibald  Campbell 
and  daughter  of  Robert  Philp.  She  died  greatly  regretted  by  all  who  had 
the  happiness  of  her  acquaintance." 

From  the  notice  it  appears  that  the  lady's  name  was  Margaret  Philp, 
not  Paulina  Phelp.  Robert  Philp,  her  father,  was  one  of  the  addressors 
of  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

The  novelist,  W.  Gilmore  Simms,  incorporates  this  story  in  his  historical 
novel,  Katherine  Walton. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  593 

of  Richardson  left  Marion  too  weak  to  hazard  an  attack, 
and  the  enemy  were  content  with  what  they  had  accom- 
plished without  attempting  to  force  him  to  it.  Marion 
retired  to  Wambaw.  The  British  marched  up  to  Quinby 
Bridge,  and,  having  gathered  some  stock,  retired  across 
Wappetaw  to  Haddrell's  Point.  ^ 

A  stronger  vindication  of  the  correctness  of  the  opinion 
that  it  was  necessary  for  the  State  to  provide  means  of 
defending  itself,  observes  Johnson,  could  not  have  been 
desired  than  was  furnished  when  it  was  thought  necessary 
to  appeal  to  other  quarters  for  protection  and  defence, 
a  strong  practical  illustration  of  which  were  the  circum- 
stances attending  the  advance  of  the  reenforcements  under 
General  St.  Clair.  Ever  since  the  month  of  March,  1781, 
this  officer,  with  the  mutinous  Pennsylvania  line,  had  been 
under  orders  to  reenforce  the  Southern  army.  He  had  first 
been  halted  on  his  march  to  aid  in  the  defence  of  Virginia ; 
and  when  again  set  in  motion  for  his  place  of  destination, 
he  consumed  more  than  two  months  in  marching  from  York- 
town  to  Greene's  headquarters  in  South  Carolina.  Nor 
was  he  chargeable  with  any  unnecessary  delay ;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  was  said  to  have  proceeded  too  rapidly,  and  so 
much  was  his  strength  impaired  when  he  reached  the 
Round  O,  that  his  force  but  little  exceeded  one-half  of 
the  number  that  crossed  the  Potomac.  It  was  not  until 
the  4th  of  January,  the  day  after  this  affair  at  Videau's 
Bridge,  that  St.  Clair  formed  a  junction  with  Greene.  The 
general  had  four  days  before  dismissed  the  Virginia  line 
with  his  warmest  acknowledgments  for  their  active  and 
patient  services.  Only  about  sixty  from  that  State  now 
remained,  and  they  had  but  one  month  longer  to  serve. 

Five  days  after  the  arrival  of  General  St.  Clair,  General 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion^  159  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  303. 

VOL.  IV.  —  2q 


594  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Wayne  was  detached  with  the  Third  Regiment  of  Dra- 
goons under  Colonel  White,  who  had  rejoined  the  arniy,^ 
and  a  detachment  of  artillery,  to  place  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  forces  then  in  arms  in  Georgia.  Orders,  it  will  be 
remembered,  had  been  some  time  before  issued  to  General 
Sumter  to  detach  Colonel  Hampton's  cavalry  to  the  support 
of  General  Twiggs  in  that  State,  and  that  corps  was  also 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  General  Wayne.  In  addition  to 
the  forces  under  Wayne's  immediate  command.  General 
Barnwell,  who  at  this  time  commanded  in  that  part  of 
South  Carolina  which  lay  along  the  lower  part  of  Savannah 
River,  received  instructions  to  cooperate  w^ith  General 
Wayne  and  render  him  all  the  aid  in  his  power.^ 

The  General  Assembly,  as  has  been  seen,  met  on  the 
18th  of  January  and  sat  until  the  26th  of  February.  Dur- 
ing its  sitting  the  demon  of  discord  again  seems  to  have 
possessed  the  American  forces.  Soon  after  it  met,  Sumter, 
resenting  his  treatment,  resigned;  and  Lee,  who  had  done 
so  much  to  create  an  enmity  between  Greene  and  Sumter, 
himself  taking  offence  at  Laurens's  command,  by  reason  of 
his  superior  rank,  early  in  February,  retired  in  disgust 
from  the  field.^  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  opposition  to 
General  Barnwell's  command,  and  discontent  at  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  prejudice  of  the  superior  rank,  and,  as  it  was 
alleged,  the  superior  claims  of  Colonel  Harden,  ran  so  high 
that  he   also  resigned  his  commission.*     But  still   more 

1  Colonel  Anthony  Walton  Wliite,  the  officer  who,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, had  been  routed  by  Tarleton  on  the  Santee  in  May,  1780.  Hist,  of 
So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  49;i-494. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  276,  277. 

8  Ibid.,  328.  In  his  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1 776  Colonel  Lee  declares 
that  he  retired  because  of  ill  health,  but  his  own  account  of  the  matter 
leaves  little  doubt  that  the  reason  assigned  by  Judge  Johnson  was  the  con- 
trolling one. 

*J6iU,294. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  595 

serious  at  this  time  were  the  dissensions  in  Marion's  bri- 
gade, which  brought  it  nearly  to  ruin,  and  laid  open  the 
country  to  the  enemy's  ravages. 

With  the  consent  of  Governor  Rutledge  and  General 
Greene,  Colonel  Maham  was  engaged  in  the  attempt  to 
raise  a  legion  for  the  Continental  service  upon  the  same 
basis  as  that  of  Colonel  Lee,  and  had  at  least  partially  suc- 
ceeded and  was  in  command  of  the  troops  he  had  raised. 
General  Marion,  Colonel  Peter  Horry,  and  Colonel  Maham 
were  all  members  of  the  General  Assembly.  The  importance 
attached  to  the  meeting  of  this  body  rendered  Marion's 
attendance  at  Jacksonborough  necessary.  His  command 
then  lay  at  Strawberry;  but,  fearing  that  some  disaster 
might  happen  during  his  absence,  he  had  moved  them  back 
near  the  banks  of  the  Santee,  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of  any 
sudden  movement  of  the  enemy.  When  leaving  he  turned 
over  the  command  of  his  brigade  to  Colonel  Peter  Horry, 
as  the  senior  officer,  giving  him  directions  to  be  pursued 
during  his  absence.  In  pursuance  of  these  orders  Colonel 
Horry  retired  to  the  north  side  of  the  Wambaw,  a  large 
creek  emptying  into  the  Santee.  Colonel  Maham's  corps 
was  ordered  by  Marion  to  be  posted  at  Mepkin  plantation, 
on  the  western  branch  of  the  Cooper  River.  As  the  enemy 
got  most  of  their  intelligence  from  persons,  more  especially 
women,  going  to  and  from  town,  Marion  particularly 
ordered  that  guards  should  be  kept  to  prevent  any  boats 
from  passing  without  a  written  permission  from  himself  or 
Horry. 

It  appears  from  the  correspondence  that  Maham  had 
already  raised  the  question  of  Horry's  right  to  command 
him,  claiming  that  as  the  commander  of  a  legionary  corps, 
as  that  of  Colonel  Lee,  he  was  under  the  immediate  com- 
mand of  the  general-in-chief,  and  that  Marion,  upon  his 
arrival  at  Jacksonborough,  had  at  once  submitted  his  claim 


696  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  General  Greene,  for  on  the  IGthi  of  January  Greene 
wrote  to  Marion  :  — 

"  I  cannot  imagine  upon  what  principles  Lt.  Col.  Maham  presumes 
to  dispute  rank  with  Lt.  Col.  Horry;  the  latter  has  been  a  Lieut. 
Colonel  in  the  Continental  service  and  still  claims  his  rank  in  that 
line,  but  supposing  his  claim  not  to  be  well  founded,  he  is  out  of  ser- 
vice not  of  choice  but  of  necessity  and  is  a  supernumerary  officer  on 
half  pay  and  therefore  his  claim  to  rank  must  be  good  whenever 
called  into  service.  .  .  .  On  this  ground  I  think  Col.  Horry  has 
clearly  the  right  of  outranliing  Col.  Maham.  Much  is  due  to  the 
merits  and  exertion  of  Col.  Maham,  but  no  less  is  due  to  the  rights 
and  claims  of  Lieut.  Col.  Horry.  It  was  never  my  intention  that 
Lieut.  Col.  Maham's  corps  should  be  subject  to  no  order  but  my  own, 
[but]  in  the  first  instance  this  would  be  totally  incompatible  with 
the  nature  of  the  service.  My  intention  with  respect  to  that  corps 
was  that  it  should  stand  upon  the  same  footing  as  Lieut.  Col.  Lee's 
Legion  which  is  called  an  independent  corps ;  nobody  has  a  right  to 
command  them  but  the  commander  in  chief  unless  by  him  placed 
under  some  other  command.  Lee's  Legion  is  frequently  put  under  a 
particular  officer's  command  according  to  the  nature  of  the  service  ^ 
and  to  be  otherwise  would  be  burdening  the  public  with  a  useless 
expense,  for  many  things  which  are  practicable  with  a  combined  force 
could  not  be  attempted  without  it.  I  am  persuaded  when  Col.  Maham 
thinks  more  fully  upon  the  subject  he  must  be  convinced  his  idea 
of  the  constitution  and  nature  of  his  corps  is  totally  inadmissible," 
etc.2 

Upon  receipt  of  this  letter  of  General  Greene,  Marion 
at  once  wrote  to  Colonel  Horry  on  the  18th :  "  I  send  you 
General  Greene's  letter  in  answer  to  mine  sent  him  as 
soon  as  I  arrived  here,  and  it  is  determined  as  I  expected. 
You  will  keep  the  letter,  and  if  the  enemy  should  ap- 
proach your  quarters  and  you  find  it  necessary,  you  must 
call  on  Colonel  Maham's  troops  and  horse  as  a  reenforce- 

1  This  statement  of  General  Greene  is  a  conclusive  answer  to  Lee's  claim 
of  independent  command  when  serving  under  Sumter,  Marion,  or  Pickens. 
See  a7ite,  176-177,  323-324. 

2Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  229-230. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  697 

ment."^  He  cautioned  Horry  not  to  call  on  Maham  for 
any  other  purpose. 

Unfortunately  Greene  and  Marion  appear  not  to  have 
been  explicit  to  him  upon  this  subject,  though  both  wrote 
to  Maham  at  this  time.  On  the  19th  Horry  wrote  to 
him :  "  I  received  letters  of  Generals  Greene  and  Marion 
yesterday.  The  former  terminates  our  rank  in  my  opinion 
(s^(?)  and  the  latter  writes  me  to  take  command  of  your 
Legion  if  I  find  it  necessary ;  the  generals  also  wrote  you, 
and  I  suppose  to  the  same  purpose.  Please  make  a  return 
of  the  strength  of  your  Legion  that  I  may  know  what  sup- 
port I  can  have  in  case  of  need.  I  have  an  officer  and  six 
men  at  Wadboo ;  as  'tis  beyond  your  post,  I  wish  you  to 
relieve  him  from  your  cavalry."  ^ 

To  this  Maham  replied  that  he  also  had  received 
letters  from  Greene  and  Marion,  that  neither  of  them  had 
written  to  him  to  give  up  his  rank,  and  added,  "As  I 
cannot  think  of  being  commanded  by  an  officer  of  the 
same  rank,  I  think  it  proper  not  to  make  you  a  return 
of  my  regiment,  and  shall  not  obey  any  orders  that  you 
may  be  pleased  to  send."  ^  Horry  informed  Marion  of  Ma- 
ham's  conduct,  and  Marion  wrote  on  the  23d,  promising  to 
see  General  Greene  and  endeavor  to  settle  the  dispute.* 
Maham  also  requested  and  obtained  a  hearing  from  General 
Greene,  refusing  to  submit  until  he  received  a  personal  an- 
swer. This  General  Greene  gave  in  substantially  the  same 
terms  as  in  his  letter  to  Marion  of  the  16th,  concluding 
with  an  appeal  to  Maham  for  the  public  service :  "You  have 
exerted  yourself  with  an  enthusiasm  in  raising  your  corps ; 
and  I  have  only  to  recommend  that  you  let  the  public 
good  and  your  private  wishes  walk  hand  in  hand,  and 
then  I  am  persuaded  you  will  not  wish  a  single  indulgence 

^Gihhes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1181-82),  2Sl.        ^Ibid.,2S8. 
I  ^  Ibid,  2SS.  ^Ihid,  210. 


598  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

incompatible  with  the  principle  I  have  laid  down."  Ma- 
ham  appears  also  to  have  complained  of  the  hard  service 
to  which  his  corps  had  been  subjected;  and  upon  this 
Greene  observes :  — 

"  With  regard  to  General  Marion's  having  made  too  free  use  of 
your  cavalry,  you  are  to  consider  how  extensive  the  country  is  he  has 
to  guard  and  how  much  he  depends  upon  your  corps.  This  will  ac- 
count for  the  hard  service  you  have  been  put  to.  The  general  is  a 
good  man,  and  when  you  consider  his  difficulties  and  make  just 
allowances  perhaps  you  will  have  little  to  complain  of  but  the  hard 
necessity  of  the  service.  Our  force  is  small  and  our  duty  extensive. 
Let  me  entreat  you  to  think  properly  on  these  matters  and  to  en- 
deavor to  accommodate  yourself  to  the  circumstances  of  our  affairs, 
and  I  will  again  endeavor  to  impress  the  general  with  the  necessity 
of  giving  you  as  much  repose  as  possible.  General  Marion  has  been 
very  useful  and  is  very  necessary ;  and  your  corps  can  nowhere  be  as 
usefully  employed  as  where  you  are."  '■ 

Notwithstanding  this  appeal,  Maham  remained  obdurate, 
and  on  the  28th  Greene  writes  to  Marion :  — 

"  I  will  also  write  to  Col.  Maham  decidedly  upon  the  dispute  re- 
specting his  rank.  I  am  sorry  the  colonel  carries  the  matter  to  so 
disagreeable  a  length.  Hank  is  not  what  constitutes  the  good  officer, 
but  good  conduct.  Substantial  services  give  reputation,  not  captious 
disputes.  A  captain  may  be  more  respectable  than  a  general.  Rank 
is  nothing  unless  accompanied  with  worthy  actions."  * 

Contenting  himself  with  such  sententious  platitudes  to 
Marion,  instead  of  peremptory  orders  to  Maham,  General 
Greene  allowed  the  most  important  and  vulnerable  section 
of  the  country  to  be  exposed  with  no  other  protection 
than  that  afforded  by  Horry,  whose  commands  Maham 
refused  to  obey.  Maham's  value  as  a  cavalry  officer  was 
doubtless  too  well  established  not  to  excite  regret  at  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  305,  306. 
SQibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  244. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  699 

probable  loss  of  his  services,  which  he  intimated  would  be 
the  result  of  his  forced  submission. ^  But  this  fear  should 
not  have  prevailed  over  the  necessity  of  providing  for  con- 
certed action  in  case  of  a  movement  of  the  enemy  to  the 
northward  of  Charlestown.  Unfortunately  Governor  Rut- 
ledge  joined  in  the  discussion,  and  wrote,  it  is  said,  a 
philippic  against  Horry.^ 

So  matters  continued.  Marion  had  especially  charged 
Horry  to  prohibit  and  prevent  communication  with  the 
town  except  by  his  own  order  or  that  of  Horry  himself. 
This  Maham  openly  and  flagrantly  violated.  "  Colonel 
Maham  interferes  with  my  command,"  writes  Horry  to 
Marion  on  the  31st  of  January.  "So  much  that  I  can 
scarcely  act;  he  gave  passes  to  several  ladies  to  go  to 
town  without  my  leave,  and  they  accordingly  went  in  a 
boat,  which  has  since  returned,  and  the  ladies  have  since 
come  up."^  Upon  this  General  Greene  writes  on  the  1st 
of  February,  to  Horry :  — 

"  I  have  written  decidedly  to  Lieut.  Col.  Maham  upon  the  dispute 
subsisting  between  you  and  him  upon  the  subject  of  rank  and  told 
him  you  had  an  unquestionable  right  to  outrank  him.  I  have  only 
to  observe  upon  this  subject  that  great  delicacy  on  your  part  should 
be  exercised  on  this  occasion,  nothing  like  triumph  as  that  will 
wound  his  feelings ;  blinded  by  matters  of  interest  and  love  of  rank 
he  will  yield  to  conviction  unwillingly  and  finding  himself  in  this 
situation  will  feel  with  double  force  every  unnecessary  exercise  of 
authority."  * 

In  this  embarrassing  position,  with  an  officer  in  com- 
mand of  a  considerable  part  of  his  force  refusing  to  obey 
his  orders,  and  his  superiors  evidently  afraid  to  bring 
matters    to    an    issue    with    his    refractory   subordinate, 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  305. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  158. 

8  Ibid.  ;  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  245. 
*  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  247. 


600  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Horry,  himself  sick,  appealed  to  Marion  to  return  and 
relieve  him  of  the  responsibility.  Marion  replies  on  the 
3d  of  February  that  he  had  written  positive  orders  to 
Maham  not  to  interfere  with  him,  and  had  been  in  hopes 
that  General  Greene  would  have  prevented  such  evils 
before  that,  but  that  his  presence  was  absolutely  necessary 
in  the  legislature  for  a  few  days,  until  the  militia  act  and 
that  raising  the  Continental  quota  of  troops  was  passed. 
There  was  also  the  confiscation  and  sequestration  bill  on 
hand,  and  until  these  were  passed  he  could  not  get  leave  to 
return. 1  Horry  continued  to  urge  Marion's  return,  and 
on  the  10th  (Sunday)  Marion  writes :  — 

"  Yours  of  the  7th  came  to  hand.  I  asked  leave  of  the  House  to 
return  but  they  would  not  grant  it ;  there  are  three  laws  now  on  the 
carpet  which  they  insist  I  should  stay  until  finished.  If  I  leave  the 
House  the  business  will  be  over  as  many  will  go  with  me  and  they 
will  not  be  able  to  make  a  House.  Our  material  business  is  the  three 
laws  above  hinted  at.  These  reasons  oblige  me  to  stay  until  Wednes- 
day next  when  I  hope  I  shall  set  out.  If  your  health  is  such  as  to 
require  your  absence  from  camp  you  will  leave  the  command  of  the 
brigade  to  Col.  Maham,"  ^  etc. 

General  Greene  had  decided  against  Maham's  preten- 
sions, but  in  doing  so  he  had  given  offence  to  Horry ;  so 
on  the  14th  he  writes  a  long  letter  of  explanation  replete 
with  moral  reflections,  urging  Horry  to  take  the  initiative 
in  making  friends  with  Maham,  as  he  was  in  a  superior 
position  to  do  so  with  dignity.^  On  the  same  day  Marion 
writes  that  he  cannot  yet  return,  as  his  going  away  will 
break  the  House  and  put  a  stop  to  business,  '*  but  hope  we 
shall  get  through  by  the  beginning  of  next  week,"  *  that 
is,  by  the  18th  or  19th.  The  Assembly  did  not,  however, 
finish  its  business  until  the  26th,  and  in  the  meantime  the 

1  Gibbes's  Documentary  Hist.  (1781-82),  248.  «  Ibid.,  251,  262. 

^  Ibid.,  2i9.  */&iU,  253. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  601 

enemy,  doubtless  through  the  women  who  were  allowed  to 
go  to  town  agamst  Marion's  orders,  were  fully  apprised 
of  the  disorganized  condition  of  the  forces  on  the  Cooper 
River,  and  prepared  to  take  advantage  of  them. 

On  the  British  side  a  new  character  appeared  on  the 
field  at  this  late  day.  The  celebrated  Count  Rumford, 
then  Colonel  Thompson,  a  Massachusetts  Tory  who  had 
been  in  England  since  the  evacuation  of  Boston  by  the 
British  army,  and  had,  under  Lord  George  Germain, 
reached  the  high  post  of  Under  Secretary  of  State,  and 
in  the  prosecution  of  his  scientific  pursuits  had  been 
elected  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  had  now  returned 
to  America,  and  come  to  South  Carolina  as  a  cavalry 
officer  burning  for  an  opportunity  of  distinction.  Arriving 
at  the  opportune  moment,  a  detachment  of  two  hundred 
horse,  five  hundred  infantry,  and  two  pieces  of  artillery 
was  formed,  and  under  his  command  moved  up  the 
Cooper  River.  Early  information  of  this  movement  had 
been  communicated  by  the  numerous  and  vigilant  con- 
fidants in  Charlestown ;  and  Greene,  it  is  said,  had  re- 
peatedly hinted  to  Marion  the  necessity  of  his  return  to 
his  command.^  But  the  State  officials  were  all  so  bent  at 
the  time  upon  the  enactment  of  the  unfortunate  Confisca- 
tion Act,  they  seemed  to  have  been  unable  to  consider 
other  matters,  however  important.  Marion  did  not  leave 
Jacksonborough  until  the  British  detachment  was  actually 
in  motion.  Then,  accompanied  by  Colonel  Maham,  who 
had  also  left  his  command  for  his  legislative  duties,  by  a  cir- 
cuitous route  and  a  very  rapid  ride,  on  the  24th  of  February, 
he  reached  the  ground  on  which  Maham's  regiment  was 
encamped  at  Mepkin.  Here  they  were  informed  that  the 
enemy  was  retiring,  and  while  Maham  paid  a  visit  to  his 
own  plantation,  Marion  remained  to  rest  and  refresh  him- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  306. 


602  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

self  before  they  resumed  their  journey  for  the  encamp- 
ment of  the  brigade.  In  five  hours  after  Maham's  depar- 
ture an  express  arrived  with  the  alarming  intelligence  that 
the  brigade  had  been  surprised  and  dispersed. ^ 

Colonel  Horry  had  by  Marion's  orders  taken  a  position 
on  the  north  side  of  Wambaw  Creek.  His  position  there 
was  in  an  angle  formed  by  two  roads  which  passed  from 
Lenud's  Ferry  to  Elias  Horry's  plantation,  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  the  bridge  over  the  creek.  In  his  rear  was 
a  wood.  His  newly  raised  Continental  regiment,  scarcely 
yet  half  completed,  lay  at  Durant's  plantation,  about  a 
mile  above,  under  the  immediate  command  of  Major 
Benison.  On  the  23d  of  February  Horry  had  out 
patrols  upon  the  Christ  Church  road,  and  scouts  in  St. 
Thomas's  Parish.  Thinking  himself  secure,  and  being 
sick,  on  the  24th  he  went  over  the  river  to  his  own  planta- 
tion, leaving  the  brigade  under  the  command  of  Colonel 
McDonald,  contrary,  says  James  in  his  Life  of  Marion^ 
to  General  Marion's  order,  which  was  to  leave  it  in  such 
case  under  Maham.^  But  this  criticism  is  unjust,  for  not 
only  had  Maham  separated  his  command  from  Horry,  but 
Maham  himself  at  the  time  was  with  Marion  at  Jackson- 
borough.^ 

Colonel  Thompson's  detachment,  consisting  of  the 
cavalry,  Cuningham's  and  Young's  troops  of  mounted 
militia,  the  Yagers,  Volunteers  of  Ireland,  a  detachment 
of  the  Thirtieth  Regiment,  and  one  three-pounder,  on 
Sunday,  the  24th  of  February,  crossed  Cooper  River  to 
Daniel's  Island  in  St.  Thomas's,  and  rapidly  advanced  to 
attack  Horry's  position.  By  the  very  spirited  exertions 
of  the  troops  and  by  mounting  the  infantry  occasionally 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  307. 

2  James's  Life  of  3Iarion,  160-161. 

8  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  307. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  603 

on  the  dragoons'  horses,  Colonel  Thompson  was  enabled  to 
carry  on  the  whole  corps  thirty-six  miles  without  halting, 
when,  falling  in  with  a  party  of  Horry's,  an  officer  and  six 
men,  none  of  whom  escaped  to  give  intelligence,  he 
pressed  on  with  the  cavalry  and  mounted  militia,  leaving 
the  infantry  posted  at  Drake's  plantation  .^ 

Major  Benison  was  at  dinner  when  Captain  Bennett,  who 
commanded  the  scouts  in  St.  Thomas's,  came  in  with  the 
intelligence  that  the  British  were  approaching.  Finding 
Benison,  it  is  said,  incredulous  of  the  report,  and  unwilling 
to  be  disturbed  at  his  meal,  Bennett  proceeded  to  head- 
quarters, where  he  found  McDonald  also  at  dinner. 
He  likewise  refused  to  believe  the  intelligence  because, 
he  said,  he  had  been  down  into  Christ  Church  the  day 
before ;  but  he  desired  Major  James,  who  had  just  arrived 
in  camp  and  came  for  orders,  to  take  command  of  his 
regiment.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  after  firing  com- 
menced at  Durant's. 

McDonald's  regiment  was  on  the  right  towards  Echaw 
Creek,  and  two  regiments  of  six-months  men  were  on  the 
left  towards  Wambaw.  Major  James  immediately  formed 
McDonald's  regiment  in  the  wood  in  the  rear,  and  rode  to 
the  left  for  orders  from  the  ranking  officer  present.  Colonel 
Screven  ;  but  Screven's  men  had  already  broken  and  he  was 
trying  to  rally  them,  but  in  vain.^ 

Benison,  who  commanded  Horry's  regiment  of  dragoons, 
when  the  pickets  were  driven  in,  crossed  Wambaw  bridge 
and  formed  the  corps  in  very  good  order  on  rising  ground 
one  hundred  yards  beyond.  He  had  scarcely  done  so 
before  the  best  of  the  Royal  mounted  militia,  under 
Colonel  Doyle,  arrived,  and  formed  at  once  opposite 
Benison's   party   to   give   time  for  the  rest  to  come  up. 

1  The  Royal  Gazette,  March  2,  1782. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  160,  161. 


604  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Colonel  Doyle,^  however,  judging  from  the  movements  of 
the  American  officers  that  Benison  was  about  to  attack, 
determined  to  anticipate  the  action,  and  made  the  signal 
with  his  whistle  for  a  charge,  which  was  instantly  obeyed 
by  the  men  with  the  greatest  gallantry.  Benison's  men, 
newly  raised  Continental  recruits,  fired  their  pistols,  then 
broke  in  confusion  and  were  pursued  with  great  slaughter, 
Benison  himself  being  killed.  The  British  asserted  that 
nothing  but  the  breaking  down  of  Wambaw  bridge,  when 
the  first  of  their  dragoons  were  crossing,  prevented  a  total 
extinction  of  Horry's  corps.^ 

Benison's  fugitives  fell  back  upon  Screven's  men,  who 
likewise  gave  way.  Major  James,  perceiving  the  day  to  be 
lost,  returned  to  his  own  regiment  and  ordered  a  retreat. 
The  Americans  did  not  claim  to  know  their  loss.  The 
British  asserted  that,  including  patrols  met  in  the  morn- 
ing, forty  were  killed  and  four  prisoners  taken.  The 
Americans  admitted  a  loss  of  thirty-five  horses. ^ 

It  was  of  this  disaster  that  Marion  heard  while  resting 
at  Mepkin.  Placing  himself  at  once  at  the  head  of 
Maham's  regiment,  he  hurried  on  across  the  country 
towards  Wambaw,  thirty  or  forty  miles  away.  Arrived 
within  five  miles  of  the  enemy,  he  halted  at  the  house  of 
Mrs.  Tydiman  to  refresh  his  men  and  horses;  and  the 
latter  were  unbitted  and  feeding  when  the  whole  of  the 
enemy's  cavalry  made  their  appearance.*  To  deceive  his 
opponents.  Colonel  Thompson,  after  his  success  on  Sunday 
the  24th,  had  made  a  parade  of  driving  off  the  cattle  he 

1  Colonel  Doyle,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  sailed  for  England  with 
Lord  Rawdon  on  the  21st  of  August,  178L  The  vessel  in  which  they 
sailed  was  captured  by  the  French.  How  Colonel  Doyle  was  released 
and  returned  to  South  Carolina  we  do  not  know. 

2  The  Royal  Gazette,  March  2,  1782. 

^  Ibid.  ;  James's  Life  of  Manon,  162. 

*  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II.,  307  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion^  162. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  605 

had  collected  and  sending  his  infantry  in  the  direction  of 
Wappetaw,  in  Christ  Church  Parish.  Then,  at  eight 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  25th,  with  his  cavalry  and 
mounted  militia,  he  pushed  on  to  the  Santee.  Approaching 
Tydiman's  plantation,  he  discovered  two  pickets  with  bay- 
onets, who  were,  he  assumed,  Continental  soldiers.  Learn- 
ing from  this  the  presence  of  infantry,  Colonel  Thomp- 
son formed  his  line  with  rapidity,  but  with  great  care.^ 
Alarmed  by  the  fire  of  the  advanced  pickets.  Captain  John 
Carraway  Smith,  commanding  Maham's  corps,  having  had 
time  to  bit  the  horses  and  mount  his  men,  drew  them  up 
promptly  in  column,  and  General  Marion,  posting  a  small 
body  of  infantry  along  the  fence  of  the  lane,  ordered  Smith 
to  charge.  In  order  to  avoid  a  pond  in  doing  this.  Smith 
was  obliged  to  incline  to  the  left  to  reach  the  enemy,  and  in 
performing  the  evolution,  the  regiment,  being  also  newly 
raised  and  not  yet  well  drilled,  fell  into  disorder.  Thomp- 
son at  once  seized  the  opportunity  and  charged  with  a  shout. 
All  was  now  rout  and  dismay.  Many  of  the  Americans,  at- 
tempting to  escape  by  swimming  the  Santee,  were  shot  in 
the  river  by  the  enemy's  riflemen,  and  others  were  drowned, 
among  them  Lieutenant  Smyser  of  Horry's  cavalry.  A  con- 
siderable party  under  the  command  of  Captain  Jones  took 
the  river  road,  and  by  lifting  the  Wambaw  bridge  arrested 
the  progress  of  the  enemy,  and  rallied  at  a  short  distance 
from  their  recent  encampment.  The  number  of  slain  was 
by  no  means  as  great  as  might  have  been  supposed,  for  the 
pickets  saved  the  infantry.  The  British  claimed  to  have 
killed  about  twenty  and  captured  twelve.  James,  how- 
ever, asserts  that  but  three  men  were  killed.  The  enemy's 
estimate  is  more  probably  correct.^ 

1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  March  2,  1782. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  308  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion^  163  ; 
The  Royal  Gazette^  March  2,  1782. 


606  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

The  detention  of  Marion  at  Jacksonborough  in  order  to 
pass  a  confiscation  bill,  an  unwise  and  unfortunate  measure 
in  itself,  and  the  quarrel  between  Maham  and  Horry,  now 
acting  under  Continental  commissions  which  Greene  had 
weakly  allowed  to  continue  without  practical  and  definite 
decision,  thus  resulted  in  the  annihilation  of  Marion's  force 
for  the  time,  with  scarcely  the  loss  of  a  man  to  the  enemy. 
Few  of  his  men  had  been  killed  or  taken,  but  the  loss 
of  horses  and  arms  was  great ;  above  all  was  the  blow  to  the 
confidence  Marion  had  hitherto  so  successfully  cherished  in 
his  men.  But  no  sooner  was  Marion's  actual  presence  known 
than  they  again  gathered  around  him.  McDonald  collected 
about  two  hundred  beyond  the  river.  Maham,  sadly  vexed 
and  mortified  and  not  a  little  offended  with  his  commander 
for  marching  without  him,  also  gathered  up  his  dispersed 
corps,  and  the  greatest  efforts  were  made  once  more  to  re- 
gain the  tract  of  country  now  in  the  undivided  possession 
of  the  enemy.  The  enemy's  triumph  was,  however,  of  short 
duration ;  fearing  the  result  of  Thompson's  expedition, 
General  Greene,  immediately  on  hearing  of  its  actual 
movements,  ordered  Colonel  Laurens  to  march  to  Marion's 
support.  On  his  approach  Colonel  Thompson,  after  gather- 
ing some  stock  and  provisions,  retired  to  Cainhoy,  where 
he  was  securely  posted  and  could  retreat  or  be  reenforced 
in  perfect  safety.  Laurens  then  returned  beyond  the 
Ashley.^ 

After  this  brilliant  exploit.  Colonel  Thompson  formed  a 
bold  plan  of  surprising  General  Greene  himself,  whose 
headquarters  were  at  Ashley  Hall,  and  capturing  the  com- 
mander of  the  Southern  department.  To  effect  this  he 
must  cross  Ashley  River  either  over  Bacon's  bridge  at 
Dorchester,  which  was  too  well  secured  for  a  sudden  at- 
tack of  cavalry,  or  at  Ashley,  now  Bee's  Ferry,  ten  miles 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  308. 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  607 

from  town.  He  chose  the  latter.  But  when  he  arrived 
there  it  was  ebb  tide,  the  water  running  out  as  from  a 
mill  sluice,  the  banks  on  each  side  were  miry,  the  river  at 
least  one  hundred  yards  wide,  and  there  was  not  a  boat. 
Thompson,  unacquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  marshy 
banks,  ordered  ^Nlajor  Fraser  to  lead  the  first  troop  into 
the  river  and  swim  across.  Fraser,  who  was  an  excellent 
and  gallant  officer,  declared  that  he  was  not  in  the  habit 
of  disputing  or  hesitating  to  perform  any  order  given  by 
his  commander,  but  protested  that  the  thing  w^as  impos- 
sible. Thompson  still  persisted,  but  consenting  that  the 
attempt  should  be  made  by  a  sergeant,  the  best  trooj^)er 
and  best  swimmer  in  the  corps  mounted  on  a  valuable 
charger  belonging  to  Major  Fraser  —  the  horse  was  lost, 
and  the  sergeant  himself  barely  saved ;  the  further  attempt 
to  cross  the  river  was  abandoned  and  the  scheme  to  capture 
Greene  given  up.^  With  this  attempt  Colonel  Thompson 
disappears  from  the  scene  in  South  Carolina  to  become 
minister  of  war,  minister  of  police,  and  grand  chamber- 
lain to  the  Elector  of  Bavaria. 

After  the  late  unfortunate  occurrence,  Marion  found 
Horrj^'s  regiment  so  crippled  and  disorganized  that  it 
was  ordered  to  fall  back  to  the  Pee  Dee  to  recruit.  Only 
sixty  of  Maham's  horse  could  be  brought  into  the  field, 
and  he  could  only  muster  forty  militiamen.  Thus  re- 
duced, Marion  was  compelled  to  retire  beyond  the  Santee 
until  he  could  return  in  force  to  repossess  the  country. 
The  interval  of  his  absence  was  but  too  successfully 
improved  by  the  enemy  in  predatory  excursions.  The 
cattle  had  been  previously  driven  across  the  Santee,  but 
provision  and  slaves  to  a  considerable  amount  were  carried 

Off.2 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion^  164. 

2  Jolmson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  309. 


608  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

It  was  now  determined  to  consolidate  the  remnants  of 
the  two  Continental  regiments  of  Horry  and  Maham  into 
one,  and  the  question  as  to  which  of  the  two  should  be 
retained  as  the  commander  of  this  consolidated  regiment 
was  one  of  great  delicacy  and  embarrassment.  Governor 
Mathews  at  last,  however,  extorted  from  Marion  his  deci- 
sion. Horry  and  himself  had  begun  their  careers  together 
as  captains  in  the  regular  regiments  raised  in  1775,  had 
been  together  at  Fort  Moultrie,  and  in  the  Continental 
service  until  the  fall  of  Charlestown  ;  Horry  had  been  with 
him  from  his  first  return  from  North  Carolina  under  Gates, 
and  had  joined  him  in  raising  again  the  standard  of  Amer- 
ican freedom  when  the  State  was  declared  subjugated ;  and 
during  all  this  time  he  had  been  conspicuous  for  his  gal- 
lantry and  patriotism.  His  property  had  been  wasted  and 
his  life  exposed  recklessly  in  the  cause  of  his  country. 
Nevertheless,  the  fact  appears  to  have  been  that  Horry, 
though  a  good  infantry  officer,  failed  in  the  most  essential 
requisite  of  a  commander  of  cavalry,  and  the  most  common 
accomplishment  of  a  gentleman  of  the  time,  that  of  horse- 
manship. Strange  to  say,  though  ambitious  of  the  fame 
of  a  good  cavalry  officer,  he  was  a  poor  rider.  In  several 
charges  he  made,  it  is  said  that  he  was  indebted  to  some 
one  or  other  of  his  men  for  saving  his  life.  This  Marion 
with  great  reluctance  was  forced  to  admit,  and  Maham 
was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  new  regiment. 
Horry  resigned,  but  as  some  consolation  Marion  made  him 
commandant  of  Georgetown,  with  full  power  not  only  to 
defend  it  from  the  enemy,  but  to  regulate  its  trade.  The 
latter  was  a  duty  for  which,  however,  he  was  scarcely 
better  fitted  than  for  the  command  of  cavalry.^ 

Maham  had  but  a  short  enjoyment  of  the  preference 
shown  him  and  of  the  command  for  which  he  was  so  am- 
1  James's  Life  of  Marion^  165. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  609 

bitious.  He  was  soon  after  taken  sick,  and  retired  to  Lis 
plantation,  at  which  a  militia  guard  was  posted  to  watch 
the  enemy  and  to  apprise  him  of  any  danger  that  should 
threaten.  The  news  of  his  absence  from  his  corps  could 
not  be  long  concealed  from  the  enemy  —  so  much  in  the 
habit  of  attaching  importance  to  the  presence  of  particu- 
lar leaders ;  an  adventurous  young  lieutenant  of  Cuning- 
ham's  Loyalists  undertook  and  executed  the  bold  enterpiise 
of  penetrating  sixty  miles  into  the  country  and  of  making 
Maham  prisoner.  Among  the  negroes  taken  from  Maham's 
neighborhood  he  found  guides  to  conduct  him  through 
the  woods  and  into  the  house  of  the  colonel,  whilst  he  sat 
at  supper  with  his  physician  and  one  of  his  lieutenants. 
The  surprise  was  too  complete  to  admit  of  resistance. 
From  the  conduct  of  Cuningham's  parties  in  recent  in- 
stances and  the  known  hostility  of  the  Loyalists  to  Maham, 
nothing  but  death  appeared  to  await  the  prisoners,  when 
Robins,  for  that  was  the  name  of  the  young  man,  demanded 
their  surrender  to  an  officer  of  General  Cuningham. 
Robins  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  his  conduct  was 
said  to  have  proved  his  ignorance  of  the  forms  of  service, 
but  with  true  bravery  and  humanity  the  apprehensions  of 
his  prisoners  were  soon  allayed  by  his  telling  them,  "  We 
shall  do  you  no  injury  ;  treat  my  men  with  humanity  when 
you  meet  them  in  the  field."  "How  much  blood,"  ob- 
served Johnson,  from  whom  this  account  is  taken,  "  would 
have  been  saved  had  a  similar  spirit  animated  all  who  had 
borne  a  part  in  this  dreadful  drama  !  "  Maham  was  paroled 
to  his  own  house,  but  the  original  parole  was  left  in  his 
possession ;  and  Robins,  though  requested,  had  exhibited 
no  commission.^ 

Maham's  career  was  ended.     Horry  retired  to  an  uncon- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  334  ;  The  Royal  Gazette,  May  22, 
1782. 

VOL.  IV.  —  2  n 


610  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

genial  local  command  to  which  he  was  not  suited,  and 
Marion's  brigade  generally  was  disorganized.  This  was 
the  result  of  Marion's  detention  at  Jackson  borough,  and 
the  dispute  between  the  two  officers  as  to  their  rank  —  a 
dispute  which  the  commander  of  the  department,  usually 
so  arbitrary,  had  not  the  firmness  peremptorily  to  decide. 

About  the  same  time  that  Thompson  started  upon  his 
raid,  a  Tory  son  of  South  Carolina  undertook  a  like  in- 
cursion below.  Young  Andrew  De  Veaux,  who  earlier  in 
the  war,  in  order  to  commit  his  followers  irrevocably,  had 
ravaged  General  Stephen  Bull's  plantation  and  burnt 
Sheldon  Church,  in  what  is  now  Beaufort  County,  after 
several  brilliant  and  perilous  personal  adventures  had  risen 
to  the  rank  of  major  in  the  Royal  militia,  and  as  such  had 
been  in  command  when  Harden  took  Fort  Balfour,  was 
again  in  the  field.  He  sailed  from  the  Stono  with  a  party 
of  soldiers  in  three  small  vessels,  and  foraged  all  along  the 
inland  watercourses,  extending  his  incursions  all  the  way 
to  Ossabaw  in  Georgia. 

General  Wayne,  who  it  will  be  remembered  had  been 
despatched  by  General  Greene  into  Georgia,  and  was  now 
operating  against  Savannah,  was  endeavoring  to  circum- 
scribe the  country  from  which  the  garrison  of  that  town 
was  drawing  its  supplies,  as  Greene  had  curtailed  that 
which  supplied  Charlestown.  A  considerable  quantity  of 
rice  which  had  not  been  thrashed  remained  on  Hutch- 
inson's Island,  opposite  Savannah,  and  so  near  the  town 
as  to  be  under  the  cover  of  the  enemy's  guns.  There  was 
also  a  large  amount  of  stacked  rice  on  Governor  Wright's 
plantation,  about  half  a  mile  northeast  of  the  town. 
Unable  to  get  possession  of  this  rice  himself,  Wayne  de- 
termined to  attempt  its  destruction.  His  plan  was  to 
make  simultaneous  attempts  to  burn  the  forage  and  grain 
collected  both  at  Wright's  and  on   Hutchinson's  Island. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  611 

The  time  appointed  was  between  twelve  and  two  in  the 
night  of  the  24th  of  February,  and  it  was  arranged  that 
the  party  under  Wayne  should  advance  and  occupy  the 
attention  of  the  enemy,  whilst  General  Barnwell,  crossing 
from  the  Carolina  side  of  the  river  in  canoes,  should  per- 
form his  part  of  the  undertaking. 

Unfortunately  for  this  enterprise,  De  Veaux  with  his 
flotilla  appeared  at  Beaufort  at  this  time,  and,  though 
deceived  and  foiled  by  a  party  of  gentlemen  representing 
themselves  in  the  dusk  of  the  evening  as  an  advanced 
guard  of  a  large  force,  upon  his  first  landing  at  Beaufort 
Island  he  succeeded  in  destroying  the  boats  which  General 
Barnwell  was  collecting  for  Wayne's  expedition.  Col- 
onel Robert  Barnwell  was,  however,  ordered  with  fifty  men 
in  boats  to  pass  the  river  and  burn  the  rice  upon  the 
island.  By  some  misfortune  he  was  betrayed  or  dis- 
covered, and  being  fired  upon  as  he  advanced,  retreated, 
losing  five  or  six  of  his  men  killed  and  as  many  taken 
prisoners.  Wayne,  hearing  the  firing,  advanced,  in  order 
to  draw  the  attention  of  the  enemy  to  himself,  and  com- 
pletely succeeded  in  effecting  his  part  of  the  undertaking. ^ 
It  was  at  this  time  that  the  opposition  to  General  Barn- 
well's command  and  discontent  at  his  appointment  ran 
highest ;  and  he  very  soon  after  resigned. ^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  293,  294 ;  McCall's  Hist,  of  Geor- 
gia, vol.  II,  402  ;  Johnson's  Traditions,  178  ;  The  Boyal  Gazette^  March  13, 
1782. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  293-294. 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

1782 

When  the  Jacksonborough  Assembly  adjourned,  Gen- 
eral Greene  moved  the  army  from  Skirving's  plantation  on 
the  Pon  Pon  to  Bacon's  bridge  at  the  head  of  the  Ashley. 
From  this  point  a  communication  by  boat  was  opened  with 
Charlestown,  and  a  contraband  trade  carried  on  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  governor  and  council,  and  with  the 
connivance  of  the  general  himself.  Means  were  brought 
to  his  consideration  by  which  certain  offers  of  goods  in 
return  for  rice  were  suffered  to  enter  Charlestown.  Some 
supplies  for  the  most  distressing  wants  of  the  army  were 
received  in  this  way  under  the  eyes  of  Colonels  Laurens 
and  Lee. 

From  the  time  of  the  failure  of  the  expedition  to  John's 
Island,  General  Greene  had  in  contemplation  a  bold  move- 
ment into  the  peninsula  or  neck  of  land  on  which  stands 
the  city  of  Charlestown.  His  plan  was  to  float  a  detach- 
ment down  the  Ashley,  in  the  night,  to  enter  the  town  in 
that  quarter,  in  connection  with  an  assault  by  him  upon 
the  enemy's  lines  in  front.  Sumter,  being  consulted  upon 
the  plan,  just  before  his  resignation,  wrote  that  there  was 
no  difficulty  of  carrying  the  post  at  the  Quarter  House, 
and  thus  entering  the  neck ;  the  question  was  as  to  the  ma- 
terials which  Greene  had  for  the  assault  upon  the  lines  of 
the  town,  and  the  danger  of  being  flanked  from  the  rivers.^ 

1  General  Sumter  to  General  Greene,  December  22,  1781;  Sumter's 
letters,  Year  Book,   City  of  Charleston,  1899,  Appendix,  68. 

612 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  613 

As  the  scheme  presented  great  difficulties,  it  was  not  to 
be  attempted  without  the  careful  preliminary  examinations 
of  the  river.  Unfortunately  a  British  galley,  for  some  un- 
known purpose,  had  been  pushed  high  up  the  Ashley  and 
stationed  there.  Greene  was  anxious  to  have  the  obstruc- 
tion removed,  and  intimated  his  wish,  provided  the  galley 
could  be  destroyed  without  too  great  a  sacrifice.  Captain 
Rudulph  of  Lee's  Legion  was  advised  by  Lee  of  the  gen- 
eral's wish,  and  charged  with  the  device  of  some  plan  for 
the  execution.  Rudulph  at  once  undertook  the  project, 
but  its  attempt  was  for  the  time  postponed  by  a  movement 
of  the  enemy  to  beat  up  Lee's  quarters  at  McQueen's  plan- 
tation, forcing  Lee  to  fall  back  nearer  the  army.  Rudulph 
did  not,  however,  give  up  the  scheme.  Soon  after  the 
defeat  of  IMarion's  brigade,  that  is,  early  in  March,  he  pre- 
sented a  plan  to  Colonel  Lee,  who  laid  it  before  General 
Greene.  He  had  observed  the  facility  with  which  boats 
going  to  market  passed  the  galley  ;  and  he  proposed  to  put 
in  one  of  these  boats  an  adequate  force,  disguising  himself 
in  a  countryman's  dress,  and  three  or  four  soldiers  in  the 
garb  and  color  of  negroes.  The  boat  was  to  be  stored  with 
the  usual  articles  for  the  Charlestown  market,  under  cover 
of  which  he  concealed  his  armed  men,  while  the  boat  was 
apparently  manned  only  by  himself  as  a  countryman,  and 
four  negroes.  Lieutenant  Smith  of  the  Virginia  line,  who 
had  with  him  arranged  the  plan,  joined  the  captain  in  its 
execution.  Everything  having  been  prepared  with  pro- 
found secrecy,  Rudulph  and  Smith  embarked  with  their 
parties  at  a  concealed  landing-place  high  up  the  Ashley  on 
the  night  of  the  18th  of  March.  Between  three  and  four 
in  the  morning,  Rudulph  got  near  to  the  galley,  when  the 
sentinel  hailed  the  boat.  He  was  answered  in  the  negro 
dialect  that  it  was  a  market  boat,  going  to  town,  and  asked 
permission  to  proceed.     In  reply  the  boat  was  ordered  to 


614  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

come  alongside,  as  the  captain  wished  to  purchase  some 
provisions.  Rudulph  obeyed,  and,  as  he  got  alongside, 
threw  some  of  his  poultry  on  deck,  his  disguised  men  at 
the  same  time  taking  fast  hold  of  the  galley.  On  signal 
from  Rudulph,  Smith  and  the  soldiers  rose  and  boarded  the 
galley.  Three  or  four  of  the  men  of  the  galley,  including 
the  sentinel,  were  killed.  Some  escaped  in  the  darkness 
of  the  night  by  throwing  themselves  into  the  river,  and 
the  captain  with  twenty-eight  sailors  were  captured.  The 
galley  mounted  twelve  guns  besides  swivels,  and  was 
manned  with  forty-three  seamen.  Rudulph  did  not  lose 
a  man,  and  after  taking  out  such  stores  as  he  found  on 
board  the  galley  he  burnt  her,  and  returned  to  his  place  of 
embarkation. 

The  enterprise  was  productive  of  excellent  effect  upon 
the  British  garrison  in  the  town.  It  counteracted  the  suc- 
cesses of  Coffin  and  Thompson,  and  alarmed  the  enemy 
lest  the  town  might  be  assailed,  as  Greene  contemplated, 
and  to  open  the  way  for  which  this  adventure  had,  in  fact, 
been  first  designed.  Every  alarm  in  the  night  excited  dire 
apprehensions:  sometimes  Greene  was  moving  to  force 
their  lines ;  at  others  he  was  floating  down  the  Ashley ; 
and  in  one  way  or  other  he  was  ever  present  to  their  dis- 
turbed imaginations.  But  such  fears  were  illusory.  After 
a  critical  examination  of  the  enemy's  situation,  no  point 
was  found  vulnerable,  and  the  general  was  obliged  to 
relinquish  any  attempt  on  the  city.^ 

There  was  distress  and  great  discontent  in  the  army  at 
this  time.  No  supplies  could  be  obtained  from  Congress, 
and  none  from  Virginia  or  North  Carolina.  For  two  years 
two  armies  had  ravaged  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  draw- 
ing their  supplies  entirely  from  its  fields.     The  arrival  of 

1  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  537,  545-546 ;  Moultrie's  Me- 
moirs^ 297. 


IN   THE  REVOLUTION  615 

reenforcements  from  Pennsylvania  now,  after  the  fighting 
was  nearly  over,  but  added  so  many  more  mouths  to  be 
filled.  On  the  9th  of  March  General  Greene  addressed  the 
President  of  Congress  as  follows ;  — 

"  Your  officers  are  in  distress,  having  drained  every  private  resource 
for  support.  Your  soldiers  are  complaining  for  want  of  pay  and 
clothing;  and  though  both  have  shown  as  much  merit  and  virtue, 
as  much  patience  and  forbearance,  as  can  be  found  in  history,  yet  you 
cannot  but  be  sensible  that  this  is  a  dangerous  foundation  to  build 
upon  —  though  it  may  last  for  a  time  it  will  have  an  end.  I  shall 
use  all  the  address  and  influence  I  am  master  of  to  gain  time ;  but 
some  fundamental  alteration  must  take  place  or  opposition  will  fail ; 
and  whenever  a  discontent  begins  to  discover  itself  a  dissolution  will 
follow  —  a  temper  I  dread  the  approach  of,  and  a  consequence  I  fear 
much  more  than  the  force  of  the  enemy. 

"  Great  part  of  my  troops  are  in  deplorable  situation  for  want  of 
clothing,  and  it  would  have  been  much  worse  had  it  not  been  for  some 
small  supplies  from  the  people  at  large  and  from  the  merchants  of 
Charlestown  by  the  advice  and  approbation  of  the  Governor  and 
council  of  the  State,  who  have,  upon  every  occasion,  done  everything 
in  their  power  for  our  relief  and  support. 

"  Not  a  rag  of  clothing  has  come  from  the  northward,  except  a 
small  quantity  of  linen  for  the  officers.  A  considerable  quantity  has 
been  in  Virginia  all  winter,  and  a  number  of  arms  which  we  have 
been,  and  still  are  in  great  want  of.  We  have  three  hundred  men  with- 
out arms,  and  more  than  a  thousand  men  are  so  naked  for  want  of 
clothing,  that  they  can  only  he  put  on  duty  in  cases  of  desperate  ne- 
cessity. Men  in  this  situation,  without  pay  or  spirits,  it  is  difficult  to 
tell  what  charm  keeps  them  together.  I  believe  that  nothing  but  the 
pride  of  the  army,  and  the  severity  of  discipline  support  them  under 
their  sufferings."  ^ 

When  General  Greene  first  entered  South  Carolina  there 
was  no  civil  government,  and  he  had  exercised  the  right 
of  impressment  from  military  necessity.  And  when  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  joined  him  on  the  Pee  Dee  the  governor 
was  at  hand  to  support  him  to  the  extent  of  his  dictatorial 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  316,  317. 


616  HISTOKY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

powers.  But  this  power  of  impressment  had  been  greatly 
abused  in  Virginia,  and,  as  has  been  seen,  offensively 
exercised  by  Colonel  Lee  in  this  State.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing, therefore,  that  among  the  acts  of  the  Jacksonborough 
Assembly  was  one  prohibiting  impressments.  The  State 
did  not,  however,  stop  to  bargain  for  the  support  of  the 
army  now  left  entirely  upon  her,  for  Georgia  could  do 
nothing ;  but  without  contract  or  reference  to  the  inquiry 
whether  it  would  amount  to  more  or  less  than  her  quota, 
took  upon  herself  its  maintenance.  The  fact  was,  as  after- 
wards appeared,  South  Carolina  was  already  creditor  to 
the  largest  amount  of  any  State  in  the  Union  except 
IMassachusetts,  notwithstanding  the  greater  devastation 
which  had  been  committed  within  her  borders.  But  this 
she  did  not  stop  to  compute.  Congress  had  assigned  as 
her  quota  of  $1,000,000,  the  Continental  estimate  for  the 
year  1782,  the  sum  of  173,598.  In  consideration  of  the 
scarcity  of  specie,  Mr.  Morris,  the  Superintendent  of 
Finance  of  the  United  States,  proposed  that  supplies  for 
the  army  should  be  furnished  by  the  State  in  kind,  instead 
of  in  money  to  that  amount.  The  Assembly  accepted  this 
proposition,  and  passed  an  act  reciting  the  facts  and  pledg- 
ing the  faith  of  the  State  for  procuring  and  furnishing 
supplies  to  the  army  to  the  amount  asked  for.  For  this 
purpose  commissioners  were  appointed  who  were  charged 
wdth  obtaining  these  supplies  in  a  manner  most  equal  and 
least  burdensome  to  the  people.  But  in  doing  this  the 
Assembly  also  provided  that  no  other  persons  than  those 
who  should  be  appointed  by  the  governor  should  be 
allowed  or  permitted  to  procure  supplies  for  the  army.^ 
Impressments  were  thus  emphatically  prohibited.  It  was 
objected  that  this  prohibition  was  calculated  to  make  the 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  IV,  325,  326.  1 


IN  THE  EEYOLUTION  617 

army  altogether  dependent  upon  the  State  for  subsistence ;  ^ 
but  surely,  if  Congress  could  not  or  would  not  support  it, 
the  alternative,  however  disagreeable  to  General  Greene, 
was  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  neglect  of  Congress, 
not  the  fault  of  the  State.  The  condition  in  which  the 
community  would  be  placed,  if  the  army  could  take  what- 
ever they  wanted  or  claimed  that  they  wanted,  would 
scarcely  be  preferable  to  the  demands  of  the  Royal 
authority.  Though  he  made  no  complaint  at  the  time,  it 
is  evident  that  Greene  was  not  pleased  with  the  arrange- 
ment. The  sincerity  and  earnestness  of  the  governor  and 
council,  as  well  as  of  the  Assembly,  however,  were  too 
conspicuous  to  admit  of  doubt  of  their  intentions,  and  the 
general  communicated  to  the  governor  the  quantity  of  pro- 
visions in  bread  and  meat  necessary  for  the  daily  allowance 
of  the  army.  This  Governor  Mathews  undertook  without 
hesitation  to  furnish. 

Mr.  William  Hort  was  appointed  commissary  and  forage 
master  general  in  behalf  of  the  State,  and  the  new  system 
went  into  operation  under  the  most  favorable  auspices ;  but 
in  less  than  six  weeks  murmurs  began  and  General  Greene 
was  complaining.  On  the  1st  of  April  he  writes  to  the 
governor : — 

"  I  am  much  afraid  that  Mr.  Hort  has  not  the  activity  or  industry- 
requisite  for  the  duties  of  his  appointment.  We  are  from  day  to  day  kept 
uneasy  for  want  of  regular  supplies  of  provision.  One  day  we  are  with- 
out beef,  the  next  without  rice,  and  some  days  without  either.  Supplies 
coming  to  the  army  in  this  way  keep  the  men  continually  murmuring 
and  complaining.  Men  will  bear  disappointments  for  two  or  three 
days  at  a  time,  but  when  the  supplies  are  continually  irregular  and  fre- 
quently deficient,  the  soldiers  will  get  impatient  and  that  will  soon 
grow  up  into  disagreeable  discontent.  To  produce  these  frequent  dis- 
appointments there  must  be  a  defect  in  the  arrangements  or  a  want 
of  industry  in  the  execution.     I  am  not  acquainted  wath  Mr.  Hort  but 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  315. 


618  HISTORY    OF    SOUTH    CAROLINA 

I  am  afraid  he  has  more  method  than  despatch.  To  fill  the  place  he 
is  in  activity  is  no  less  requisite  than  method  and  integrity.  Your 
Excellency  knows  of  how  much  importance  it  is  to  have  the  army 
constantly  and  well  supplied ;  and  in  our  situation  how  dangerous  a 
failure.  I  beg  you  will  therefore  explain  to  Mr.  Hort  the  necessity 
of  being  punctual.  The  service  must  suffer  if  the  troops  are  without 
provisions  and  God  only  knows  what  may  be  the  consequences  should 
the  enemy  avail  himself  of  one  of  these  unfortunate  moments  to  at- 
tack. We  are  very  near  the  enemy,  even  within  surprising  distance. 
It  is  dangerous  hazarding  the  least  discontent  in  a  matter  which  never 
fails  to  produce  ill  humor  in  an  army.  Our  troops  have  never  been 
without  provisions  so  much  during  all  last  campaign  as  they  have  since 
Mr.  Hort  has  undertaken  the  business,  and  the  provisions  not  more 
than  twenty  or  thirty  miles  off."  ^ 

Besides  General  Greene's  usual  querulousness,  there  is  a 
tone  of  uneasiness  and  anxiety  in  this  letter  unwarranted 
by  the  irregularities  in  the  supplies  of  which  it  complains. 
That  Mr.  Hort  was  able  to  supply  the  army  at  all  under 
the  circumstances  should  have  caused  congratulations  rather 
than  complaints.  The  country  from  which  the  supplies  were 
to  be  drawn  had  been  harried  and  ravaged  now  for  two 
years.  The  dispersion  of  Marion's  brigade  had  cut  off  the 
country  from  the  Cooper  to  the  San  tee ;  that  from  the  Santee 
to  the  Edisto  had,  during  the  whole  of  the  preceding  season, 
been  traversed  and  pillaged  to  an  extent  which  had  pre- 
vented farming  and  interfered  with  the  produce.  Upon 
the  evacuation  of  Camden,  Sumter  had  cleared  it  as  far  as 
he  could  of  cattle  and  horses,  and  Lord  Rawdon  on  his  re- 
treat had  swept  away  all  that  Sumter  had  left.  In  the 
section  to  the  south  of  the  Edisto  the  planters  had  been  in 
a  turmoil  since  Harden  had  entered  it  the  year  before. 
Without  means  of  transportation,  the  wonder  is  that  the 
State  commissary  was  able  to  accomplish  as  much  as  he 
did.  Doubtless  the  army  felt  the  check  upon  the  arbitrary 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  315. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  619 

impressments  in  which  they  had  been  indulged  during  the 
last  year,  and  that  in  this  way  it  was  true  that  they  had  not 
been  as  restricted  during  the  last  campaign.  Governor 
Mathews,  who  had  experience  as  chairman  of  the  commit- 
tee of  Congress,  at  Washington's  headquarters,  \vas  quite 
as  competent  to  judge  of  Mr.  Hort's  efficiency  as  General 
Greene  ;  and  while  he  made  the  most  zealous  efforts  to 
keep  the  troops  supplied,  General  Greene's  complaints  did 
not  shake  his  confidence  in  Mr.  Hort's  industry  and  capac- 
ity. Probably,  too.  Governor  iVIathews  was  aware  of  the 
general's  habit  of  finding  some  one  responsible  for  all  his 
own  misadventures,  and  that  not  even  Colonel  Davie,  who 
had  sacrificed  opportunities  of  fame  in  the  field,  to  act  as 
his  commissary  and  had  served  him  so  faithfully,  and 
apparently  possessed  so  large  a  portion  of  his  esteem,  could 
escape  expressions  of  the  general's  impatience.^ 

The  truth  is  that  Greene  had  deeper  causes  of  anxiety  at 
this  time  than  could  have  been  given  by  the  absence  of  rum 
and  tobacco,  and  the  irregularities  of  the  commissariat.  The 
whole  Continental  line  was  doubtless  in  a  deplorable  state 
for  the  want  of  clothing  and  other  necessaries ;  but  beyond 
physical  suffering,  which  many  other  armies  have  endured 
without  rebellion,  there  was  at  this  time  a  spirit  of  unrest 
and  insubordination  throughout  his  array.  Colonel  Lee, 
who  had  been  so  petted  and  spoiled  by  General  Greene, 
could  not  brook  being  outranked  by  Colonel  Laurens, 
and  conceiving  that  Greene  had  not  done  him  justice  in 
his  official  reports,  on  the  26th  of  January,  1782,  requested 
leave  of  absence  in  a  letter  in  which  he  does  not  attempt 
to  conceal  his  discontent  and  dissatisfaction.  A  wordy  and 
platitudinous  correspondence  ensued  between  the  former 
friends,  in  which  they  declared  their  love  for  each  other ; 
but  Lee  refused  to  withdraw  his  letter,  and  left  the  army 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  248. 


620  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

in  which  he  had  so  greatly  distinguished  himself,  and  the 
operations  of  which  he  had  so  greatly  influenced.^  Upon 
his  retirement  General  Greene  reorganized  his  light  troops 
into  a  brigade,  which  he  placed  under  the  command  of 
General  Gist  of  Maryland.  By  this  arrangement  the 
cavalry  of  the  Legion  and  that  of  the  Third  and  Fourth 
Virginia  Regiments  were  united  under  Colonel  Baylor; 
the  infantry  of  the  Legion,  the  dismounted  dragoons  of  the 
Third  Regiment,  the  Delaware  Regiment,  and  one  hundred 
men  detached  from  the  line  and  commanded  by  Major  Beale, 
were  formed  into  a  body  of  infantry  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Laurens.  This  arrangement  gave  new  cause  for 
offence,  as  it  prevented  the  promotion  of  Major  Rudulph,  who 
had  so  long  and  so  efficiently  served,  but  who,  in  Greene's 
opinion,  did  not  possess  the  requisites  for  such  a  command. 
Connected  with  this  objection  was  also  an  indisposition  to 
serve  under  Colonel  Laurens.  The  result  was  the  resigna- 
tion in  a  body  of  Major  Rudulph  and  all  the  officers  of  the 
Legion.  Then  the  captains  and  subalterns  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania line  were  offended  because  Captain  Wilmot  of  the 
Maryland  line  had  been  put  in  charge  of  a  critical  service,  and 
undertook  to  remonstrate  against  it  and  discuss  with  the 
general  the  propriety  of  the  detail. ^  It  was  not  surprising, 
as  General  Wayne  declared,  that  such  a  spirit  of  discontent 
and  insubordination  should  be  communicated  to  the  men. 
Nor  was  it  to  be  expected  that  the  state  of  the  army 
or  the  sentiment  of  the  soldiers  could  be  concealed  from 
an  enemy  but  twenty  miles  distant ;  and  unfortunately 
the  army  at  this  time  had  in  it  a  mass  of  material  too  easy 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol,  II,  321-322.  Colonel  Lee  concludes  by- 
declaring  his  wish  that  he  could  bind  his  mind  to  another  decision.  He 
writes,  ' '  I  have  tried  much,  but  the  sores  of  my  wounds  are  only- 
irritated  by  such  efforts." 

2  Captain  William  Wilmot,  Second  Maryland  Continental  Regiment, 
who  was  to  fall  just  before  the  end  of  the  war,  his  blood  the  last  spilled  in 
the  Revolution. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  021 

to  be  worked  upon.  This  was  in  the  Pennsylvania  line, 
whose  officers  were  now  disputing  with  the  general 
the  propriety  of  his  orders,  and  whose  men  were  the 
very  mutineers  who  had  triumphed  over  the  government  in 
the  insurrection  in  New  Jersey  the  year  before,  and  who, 
as  Lafayette  observed,  "had  been  well  paid  and  well 
clothed  in  consequence  of  it."  There  was  even  in  it  one 
of  the  sergeants  who  had  been  put  in  command  of  the 
regiments  in  the  mutiny,  and  a  number  of  others  of  the 
same  description  who  had  deserted  from  the  enemy  whilst 
they  lay  in  Philadelphia.  It  was  believed  that  this  man. 
Sergeant  Gornell,  and  several  others,  including  the  gen- 
eral's steward,  had  been  bought  over  by  secret  emissaries  ; 
and  had  the  zeal  of  these  agents  not  prompted  them  to 
make  an  attempt  on  the  fidelity  of  the  Maryland  line,  the 
most  fatal  consequences  might  have  ensued.^ 

The  first  indication  of  the  trouble  was  a  placard  near  the 
quarters  of  General  St.  Clair,  who  commanded  the  Penn- 
sylvanians,  to  this  effect,  "  Qan  soldiers  he  expected  to  do 
their  duty  clothed  in  rags  and  fed  on  rice.''''  The  Maryland, 
Delaware,  and  Virginia  Continentals  were  doubtless  in 
rags  at  this  time ;  but  the  Pennsylvania  line,  as  Lafayette 
observed,  were  from  their  mutiny  the  best-clothed  troops 
in  the  army.  These  men  were  no  doubt  unaccustomed  to 
rice,  but  it  was  a  substantial  and  nutritious  food.  Pam- 
pered, indeed,  must  have  been  the  soldiers  who  would 
mutiny  rather  than  eat  it.  Suspicion  attaching  to  certain 
of  the  line,  they  went  over  at  once  to  the  enemy,  and  the 
trouble  apparently  ended.  But  it  had  not;  a  conspiracy 
was  formed  by  Gornell  and  the  general's  steward,  and  a 
correspondence  opened  with  the  enemy  to  deliver  up  on  a 
given  day  the  commander  and  every  officer  of  distinction. 
The  quick  ear  of  a  camp-woman,  who   had   noticed   the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  319. 


622  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

murmuring  of  the  disaffected  and  unguarded  expressions  of 
the  ringleader,  occasioned  the  discovery  of  the  plot. 

Steps  were  at  once  taken  to  meet  and  crush  the  revolt. 
The  light  troops,  who  had  been  relieved  of  outpost  duty 
and  were  being  indulged  with  more  comfortable  quarters 
in  the  rear  to  recover  from  the  fatigues  of  the  severe  ser- 
vice they  had  undergone,  were  quietly  brought  forward. 
To  these  not  a  shade  of  suspicion  attached.  Washington's 
and  the  Legion  cavalry  took  their  station  in  advance.  The 
Delawares,  Smith's  company  of  Virginia  regulars,  and  the 
Legion  infantry  were  drawn  nearer  to  headquarters.  A 
troop  of  horse  was  pushed  forward  to  watch  the  motions 
of  the  enemy.  These  arrangements  having  been  quietly 
but  promptly  made.  Sergeant  Gornell  was  arrested.  That 
night  every  soldier  who  apprehended  he  had  committed 
himself  broke  away  and  joined  the  enemy,  then  advanced 
to  receive  them ;  for  this  it  appears  was  the  very  day  the 
plot  was  to  have  been  executed.  For  many  days  before 
symptoms  of  mutiny  had  appeared,  and  movements  of  the 
enemy  had  taken  place  which  had  put  the  American  com- 
mander on  his  guard. 

Sergeant  Gornell  was  tried  and  convicted  and  executed 
on  the  22d  of  April.  He  walked  to  his  execution  with  a 
firm  step  and  composed  countenance,  distributing,  as  he 
passed  along,  to  such  of  his  companions  as  approached  him, 
several  articles  of  his  clothing,  at  that  period  valuable 
legacies.  His  hat  he  gave  to  one,  his  coat  to  another,  his 
sleeve-buttons  to  a  third.  Every  countenance,  we  are  told, 
expressed  sorrow,  but  not  a  murmur  was  heard.  Arrived 
at  the  fatal  spot,  the  doomed  man,  in  a  few  words,  but  in 
the  most  impressive  manner,  called  upon  his  comrades 
"  not  to  sully  their  glory  nor  forego  the  advantages  they 
would  specially  realize  from  a  termination  of  the  war;  and 
if  a  thought  of  desertion  had  been  harbored  in  their  bosoms 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  623 

at  once  to  discard  it."  "I  have  no  cause,"  he  added,  "to 
complain  of  the  court.  I  certainly  spoke  imprudently, 
and  from  the  evidence  given  of  my  guilt  they  could  not 
have  acted  otherwise."  He  then  gave  the  signal  to  the 
platoon  selected  from  his  own  corps,  was  fired  on,  and 
expired.^ 

Some  others,  believed  to  be  associates  with  the  sergeant, 
among  whom  were  Peters  and  Owens,  domestic  servants  at 
headquarters,  were  also  tried ;  but  the  testimony  was  not 
deemed  conclusive  by  the  court.  Four  other  sergeants  of 
the  Pennsylvania  line  were  sent  into  the  interior  under 
guard.  The  decisive  conduct  of  General  Greene  crushed 
effectually  the  mutiny,  and  the  result  proved  that,  although 
the  temper  of  complaint  and  of  discontent  pervaded  the 
army,  but  few  of  the  soldiers  were  in  reality  guilty  of  the 
criminal  intentions  which  were  believed  at  first  to  have 
spread  far  through  the  ranks. 

On  the  morning  of  the  execution  Captain  O'Neal  of  the 
Legion,  accompanied  by  Lieutenant  John  Middleton  and 
Captain  Rudulph,  who  had  volunteered,  was  sent  to  watch 
the  movements  of  the  enemy.  Passing  Bacon's  bridge,  they 
patrolled  the  road  for  several  miles  below  Dorchester,  and 
seeing  no  appearance  of  the  enemy  without  their  lines, 
O'Neal  turned  his  troop  to  retire.  Rudulph  and  two 
dragoons  were  in  the  advance.  On  a  sudden  three  well- 
mounted  black  troopers  appeared  in  their  front.  These 
were  immediately  charged.  The  chief  of  the  negro  party 
fell  by  the  arm  of  Pope,  a  soldier  of  distinguished  gal- 
lantry. Rudulph  dismounted  the  second,  and  made  him  a 
prisoner.  The  thiid  escaped.  From  the  captive  they 
learned  that  a  troop  under  the  command  of  Captain  Daw- 
kins  had  gone  by  the  way  of  Goose  Creek  bridge  and 
were  to  return  by  way  of  Dorchester.     Upon  this  informa- 

1  Garden's  Anecdotes  of  the  Eevolution,  365-367. 


624  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

tion  O'Neal  pushed  forward  in  full  expectation  of  a  com- 
plete triumph.  Dawkins  was  soon  discovered  passing 
through  the  village  of  Dorchester  and  bearing  down  upon 
O'Neal.  The  charge  was  sounded  on  both  sides  and  a 
fierce  conflict  began ;  but  before  any  material  advantage 
could  be  gained,  the  bugle  was  heard  from  another  quarter, 
and  British  infantry  arose  in  every  direction.  A  road 
leading  to  Goose  Creek  afforded  the  only  chance  of  retreat ; 
this  was  immediately  taken,  and,  though  exposed  to  a 
heavy  fire,  the  officers  and  most  of  the  privates  escaped 
without  injury  —  nine  men  and  fifteen  horses  of  the  troop 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  This  was  the  only 
advantage  resulting  to  the  enemy  in  a  conjuncture  from 
which  he  expected  to  derive  signal  benefit. ^ 

General  Pickens,  it  will  be  remembered,  had,  about  the 
1st  of  November,  been  despatched  to  guard  the  frontiers 
against  the  Indians,  who  had  again  been  incited  to  rise,  a 
part  of  Cuningham's  band  having  escaped  in  that  direction 
after  the  massacre  at  Hayes's  Station  and  joined  the 
Cherokees  there. ^  Some  time  before  General  Pickens  em- 
barked upon  the  expedition  he  communicated  his  intentions 
to  Generals  Rutherford  and  Sevier  of  North  Carolina,  re- 
questing their  cooperation.  These  officers  responded,  and 
a  plan  of  campaign,  assailing  the  Indian  country  at  differ- 
ent points,  was  arranged;  but  for  some  reasons  unknown,. 
Rutherford  and  Sevier  did  not  comply  with  their  under- 
taking. General  Pickens,  relying  upon  this  promised 
assistance,  about  the  1st  of  January,  with  a  party  of  Geor- 
gians under  Major  John  Cunningham  and  a  portion  of  his 
own  brigade,  made  a  rapid  but  cautious  march  into  the 
eastern  part  of  the  Cherokee  Nation,  in  what  is  now  Oconee 

1  3Iemoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee),  547,  549  ;  Johnson's  Life  of 
Greene,  vol.  II,  319,  320 ;  Garden's  Anecdotes  of  the  Revolution,  367,  368. 

2  See  ante,  484. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  625 

County,  and  laid  every  town,  village,  and  settlement  in 
ashes  on  the  east  of  the  mountains.  Receiving  no  intelli- 
gence, however,  of  the  cooperation  of  Rutherford  and 
Sevier,  he  fell  back.  This  retrograde  motion  was  construed 
by  the  Indians  into  fear  of  a  general  engagement,  and  dis- 
sipated the  effect  of  the  destruction  of  their  towns  and 
property.  In  this  expedition  Pickens  killed  forty  Cherokees, 
with  a  great  number  of  prisoners,  burned  thirteen  towns, 
with  the  loss  only  of  two  men  wounded.^ 

Colonel  Robert  Anderson  of  Pickens's  brigade,  obtain- 
ing intelligence  that  an  attack  was  to  be  made  by  a  body 
of  Loyalists,  Cherokees,  and  Creeks,  communicated  the 
information  to  Colonel  Clarke  of  Georgia,  and  appointed 
Freeman  Fort  as  the  place  of  rendezvous  on  the  1st  of 
April.  Clarke  repaired  there  with  one  hundred  Georgians 
and  was  joined  by  Anderson  with  three  hundred  Carolinians. 
They  marched  early  the  next  morning  to  Oconee  River, 
passed  over  it  a  short  distance,  where  they  halted  to  obtain 
further  intelligence  of  the  enemy.  Scouts  were  sent  out 
in  different  directions,  with  orders  to  avoid  if  possible  being 
discovered  by  the  Indians.  Captain  Black,  who  commanded 
one  of  these  parties,  had  not  proceeded  more  than  a  mile 
before  he  fell  in  with  the  main  body  of  the  enemy.  The 
discovery  of  each  other  was  made  at  the  same  time  by 
both  parties.  Black  retreated  towards  camp,  and  was 
pursued  and  fired  upon  by  the  Indians,  who  appeared  to 
have  had  no  information  of  a  formidable  force  being  so 
near  them.  Colonel  Clarke  immediately  advanced  to  the 
scene  of  action  and  met  Black  on  the  retreat.  When  the 
enemy  discovered  the  American  force,  they  fled  in  the  ut- 
most confusion,  and  scattered  in  various  directions  so  as  to 
avoid  a  general  engagement.  Several  of  the  Indians  were 
killed,  and  two  of  the  Loyalists  were  taken  prisoners  and 
iMcCall's  Hist,  of  Qa.,  vol.  II,  698;  Memoirs  of  the  War  of  1776  (Lee), 627. 

VOL.  IV.  —  2s 


626  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

hanged  —  for  former  offences,  as  it  was  said.  Their  very 
presence  with  the  Indians,  however,  under  these  circum- 
stances, would  have  justified  their  execution.  Captain 
Holloway  of  Anderson's  regiment  was  killed  in  the  pur- 
suit by  a  wounded  Indian.  This  defeat  had  a  temporary 
effect,  and  left  the  inhabitants  for  a  few  months  in  the 
enjoyment  of  comparative  quietness  and  peace. ^ 

Lee  justly  observes  that  it  is  extraordinary  that  the 
Cherokees,  who  had  complied  with  their  engagements  and 
kept  the  peace  during  the  past  campaign,  when  the  success 
of  Lord  Cornwallis  and  the  many  difficulties  Greene  had  to 
encounter  gave  such  encouragement  to  their  rising,  should 
have  delayed  doing  so  until  the  British  army  in  Virginia 
had  been  forced  to  surrender,  and  that  acting  in  South 
Carolina  had  been  compelled  to  take  shelter  under  the 
guns  of  the  forts  and  ships  in  Charlestown  harbor ;  and 
that  at  this  late  hour  they  were  so  rash  as  to  listen  to 
exhortations  often  before  aj)plied  in  vain. 

The  inhabitants  in  the  interior,  between  the  Indians  on 
the  frontier  and  the  armies  now  restricted  to  the  coast, 
were  yet  in  a  fearful  condition.  Open  war  had  ceased, 
and  the  armies  had  passed  away,  but  the  internecine 
struggle  in  many  parts  of  the  State  still  continued  with 
fearful  results.  In  some,  however,  truces  were  agreed 
upon  between  the  Whigs  and  Loyalists.  One  instance 
of  this  was  a  truce  made  between  the  Loyalists  on  the 
Salkehatchie  and  the  neighboring  State  militia  in  order  to 
allow  the  cultivation  of  the  crops  for  the  ensuing  summer. 
To  effect  this,  proposals  were  made  for  a  cessation  of 
hostilities  for  a  limited  time.  Commissioners  authorized 
for  the  purpose  met  at  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Gray  on  the 
southern  side  of  the  Edisto,  about  ten  miles  above  Saw 
Mills.  Captains  Oldfield,  Jones,  and  Cheshire  of  the 
iMcCall's  Hist.  ofGa.,  vol.  II,  398,  399. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  627 

Royal  militia  represented  the  Tory  side,  and  Colonel 
Davies,  Captains  Youngblood  of  Edisto  and  Heape  of 
Horse  Shoe,  empowered  by  Governor  Mathews,  repre- 
sented that  of  the  Whigs.  A  truce  was  agreed  upon  for 
two  months,  from  the  1st  of  April  and  ending  on  the  1st 
of  June,  during  which  a  strict  neutrality  was  to  be  observed, 
and  those  who  had  lost  property  on  either  side  were  to  be 
allowed  to  recover  it  upon  proper  proof.  The  territory 
included  in  the  truce  was  described  as  extending  from  the 
Upper  Three  runs  to  Mathews's  Bluff  on  the  Savannah 
River,  and  from  thence  across  the  country  in  the  same 
breadth  in  a  direction  nearly  perpendicular  to  South 
Edisto,  comprising  an  extent  of  country  nearly  sixty 
miles  square,  part  of  which  reached  within  thirty  miles 
of  the  rear  of  General  Greene's  position.^ 

This  truce  lasted  until  near  the  25th  of  May,  when  The 
Royal  Gazette  charged  that  it  was  broken  by  the  Whigs ; 
Major  Goodwyn  of  the  Congaree  militia  with  eighteen  men 
from  the  post  at  Four  Holes  at  midnight  seizing  Captain 
Cheshire  and  three  of  his  men  at  a  friend's  house  on  the 
Edisto.  But  this  action  was  probably  brought  on  by  the 
collection  of  a  body  of  hostile  Tories  on  Dean  Swamp,  a 
branch  of  the  South  Edisto,  near  the  present  town  of  Salley. 
Captains  Michael  Watson  and  William  Butler  of  Pickens's 
brigade,  learning  of  the  assembling  of  the  party  of  Tories, 
determined  to  break  them  up.  The  expedition  was  formed 
at  the  Ridge,  in  what  is  now  Edgefield,  with  Captain 
Watson  in  command.  Watson's  men  were  mounted  militia 
armed  with  rifles  and  muskets,  Butler's  were  cavalry 
armed  with  pistols  and  cutlasses.  The  party  moved  for- 
ward at  sunset  to  surprise  the  Tories.  They  moved  with 
great  rapidity  and  captured  a  disaffected  man  named 
Hutto,  whom  they  hurried  along  with  them  under  guard. 
1  The  Boyal  Gazette,  June  8,  1782. 


628  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

As  they  approached  the  Tory  encampment  Hutto  made 
his  escape  and  gave  notice  to  the  Tories  of  Watson's  ap- 
proach ;  upon  which  an  ambush  was  arranged  for  the 
approaching  Whigs.  When  Hutto's  escape  was  reported, 
Watson  declared  his  opinion  that  the  expedition  should 
be  abandoned;  but  Butler  thought  otherwise,  and  they 
continued  to  advance.  As  the  Whigs  approached  the 
edge  of  the  swamp  two  men  were  observed  as  if 
endeavoring  to  hide  themselves.  Butler,  Watson,  and 
Sergeant  Vardell  —  a  very  brave  man  —  rode  rapidly  for- 
ward to  capture  them.  Watson  first  discovered  that  these 
men  were  only  a  decoy,  and  when  too  late  warned  the 
others  that  the  whole  of  the  Tories  were  there  concealed. 
The  Tories  arose  on  being  discovered,  and  poured  on  their 
assailants  a  well-directed  fire,  which  brought  down  Wat- 
son, Vardell,  and  several  others  of  the  foremost  Whigs. 
Upon  the  fall  of  Watson,  Butler  assumed  command,  and, 
though  sorely  pressed,  brought  off  the  wounded  men ;  but 
now  found  to  his  mortification  that  the  infantry  had  little 
or  no  ammunition  left,  and  that  the  enemy  were  advancing 
upon  him.  In  this  emergency  John  Corley,  his  lieutenant, 
made  a  desperate  charge  on  the  enemy,  and  that  so  unex- 
pectedly as  to  throw  them  into  confusion ;  following  up 
his  advantage,  his  men,  mingling  in  the  disordered  ranks 
of  the  enemy,  prevented  them  rallying.  Butler  continued 
his  impetuous  onslaught  until  the  Tories  took  refuge  in 
the  swamp.  As  the  Whigs  returned  in  triumph,  the 
gallant  Vardell  made  an  effort  to  rise  and  wave  his  hand 
in  exultation,  but  fell  back  and  expired.  He  was  buried 
in  the  field.  Watson  survived  until  the  Whigs  reached 
Orangeburgh,  but  died  immediately  afterwards.^  | 

It  was  just  after  this  that  "Bloody  Bill"   Cuningham  ' 
made  a  second  incursion  into  Ninety  Six  District.     Per- 
1  Johnson's  Traditions,  548, 549  j  MS.  Memoir  of  General  William  Butler. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  629 

fectly  familiar  with  the  country  from  his  youth,  possessed 
of  great  sagacity  and  fertility  in  military  expedients,  and 
endowed  with  all  the  physical  qualities  so  essential  to  the 
partisan,  he  was  no  mean  adversary.  But,  fortunately  for 
the  Whigs,  a  leader  was  found  in  Captain  William  Butler 
fully  able  to  cope  with  the  brilliant,  if  bloody,  Tory  parti- 
san. Cuningham's  favorite  manoeuvre  was  to  divide  his 
command  upon  the  march  into  small  detachments,  to  be 
concentrated  by  different  routes  near  the  point  at  which 
the  blow  was  aimed.  In  this  manner  he  had  concentrated 
his  force  at  a  point  known  as  Corradine's  Ford  on  the 
Saluda.  Butler,  with  a  portion  of  his  company,  marched 
to  meet  him,  and  to  ascertain  his  position  resorted  to  a 
ruse.  Approaching  the  residence  of  Joseph  Cuningham, 
near  the  junction  of  the  Little  and  the  Big  Saluda,  he  sent 
forward  his  brother,  Thomas  Butler,  with  Abner  Corley, 
to  the  house  in  the  night.  Thomas  Butler  was  an  excel- 
lent mimic,  and,  imitating  the  voice  of  one  of  William 
Cuningham's  men,  named  Nibletts,  called  aloud  and  in- 
quired "where  our  friend  Cuningham  was."  The  wife 
of  Joseph  Cuningham  replied  that  he  had  crossed  Cor- 
radine's Ford.  With  that  Captain  Butler  himself  rode  up 
to  the  house,  and,  mounting  Joseph  Cuningham  upon  a 
horse,  compelled  him  to  guide  the  party  across  the  ford. 
They  crossed  this  ford  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  and  next 
morning  halted  in  a  peach  orchard  near  Bauknight's  Ferry. 
The  horses  were  feeding,  when  a  gray  mare  which  Cun- 
ingham was  known  to  have  taken  from  the  neighbor- 
hood was  observed  passing  back,  having  escaped  from  his 
camp.  This  incident  disclosed  in  some  measure  the  state 
of  affairs,  and  Butler's  rangers  received  the  order  to  march. 
The  rangers  numbered  about  thirty,  Cuningham's  men 
about  twenty.  The  bloody  scenes  of  Cloud's  Creek,  it  was 
observed,  animated  every  encounter  between  Butler  and 


630  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Cuningham  with  more  the  spirit  of  the  duel  than  of  the 
battle-field. 

Approaching  the  Tory  position  unobserved,  John  Corley 
was  detailed  with  eight  men  to  gain  their  rear,  and  upon 
a  preconcerted  signal  to  attack  while  the  main  body  ad- 
vanced under  cover  of  a  hedge.  The  Tories  were  drying 
their  blankets  by  their  camp-fires,  and  Cuningham  him- 
self was  at  a  little  distance  off  from  his  band.  As  it  after- 
wards appeared,  Butler's  person  being  at  one  time  exposed 
in  advancing  before  the  signal  was  given,  he  was  observed 
by  the  Tories,  but  taken  for  their  own  leader,  for  there 
was  a  strong  personal  resemblance  between  the  two  men. 
Corley's  furious  assault,  himself  foremost  in  the  charge, 
was  the  first  intimation  to  the  Tories  that  their  exasper- 
ated foes  were  at  hand.  Cuningham  was  promptly  at 
liis  post;  but,  taken  by  surprise  and  attacked  by  superior 
numbers,  thought  only  of  safety.  Having  no  time  to 
saddle  his  horse,  but  seizing  his  holsters,  with  a  partisan's 
quickness  he  sprang  to  his  seat,  while  Butler,  singling  him 
out,  dashed  in  pursuit.  Both  men  were  remarkably  good 
riders,  and  tradition  has  preserved  even  the  names  of  the 
horses  they  rode.  Cuningham  was  mounted  on  a  mare 
which  had  become  celebrated  in  his  service  as  "  Silver 
Heels,"  while  Butler  rode  a  horse  called  "  Ranter."  As 
Butler  carried  only  a  sabre  and  Cuningham  had  only 
his  pistols,  which  had  been  rendered  useless  by  the  rain 
of  the  previous  night,  life  or  death  hung  upon  the  speed 
of  the  horses.  As  long  as  the  chase  was  in  the  woods, 
Ranter  maintained  his  own ;  but  when  they  struck  an  open 
trail  in  which  the  superior  stride  of  Cuningham \s 
thoroughbred  could  tell,  turning  in  his  seat  and  patting 
with  triumphant  confidence  the  noble  animal  that  bore 
him,  he  tauntingly  exclaimed,  "I  am  safe."  Dashint^- 
rapidly  away  from  his  adversary,  he  escaped  by  himself 
swimming  the  Saluda  near  Lorick's  Ferry. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  631 

When  Butler  returned  from  the  pursuit  of  Cuningham, 
he  found  a  portion  of  his  command  assembled  at  the  Tory 
camp  under  circumstances  which  gave  him  great  concern. 
Turner,  one  of  the  prisoners,  had  been  deliberately  shot 
through  the  head  after  he  had  surrendered.  When  But- 
ler had  rebuked  the  act,  Scysia,  who  had  committed  the 
deed,  justified  himself  by  telling  of  an  outrage  the  un- 
fortunate Tory  had  inflicted  upon  his  mother.  The 
Tory,  he  alleged,  had  stripped  Mrs.  Scysia  to  the  waist, 
had  tied  and  severely  whipped  her,  to  force  her  to  dis- 
close where  were  a  party  of  Whigs  among  whom  was  her 
son.  The  corps  justified  Scysia,  and  no  action  was  taken 
against  him.  A  pursuit  of  Cuningham's  men  was  ordered 
for  the  purpose  of  capturing  or  dispersing  them,  and  some 
were  overtaken  while  crossing  the  river,  others  were  shot. 
The  result  of  this  action  was  the  dispersion  of  Cuning- 
ham's famous  band.i 

1  MS.  Memoir  of  General  William  Butler ;  Curwin's  Journal  and 
Letters^  Appendix,  646. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

1782 

On  the  4th  of  April,  General  Leslie  addressed  a  com- 
munication to  General  Greene,  in  which  he  stated  that 
it  was  with  deep  concern  he  viewed,  in  the  proceedings 
of  the  late  Assembly,  acts  for  amercing  the  property  of 
some  persons  and  confiscating  that  of  others  whose  prin- 
ciples had  attached  them  to  the  cause  of  their  sovereign. 
He  had  hoped  that  humanity  would  have  arrested  their 
execution,  and  that  he  would  not  have  been  compelled 
to  take  measures  to  counteract  their  effect.  But  when 
these  hopes  were  disappointed  and  he  found  the  property 
of  the  loyal  removed  from  their  estates,  he  could  no  longer 
remain  the  quiet  spectator  of  their  distresses  ;  and  in 
order  to  induce  a  juster  line  of  conduct  he  had  employed 
a  part  of  the  force  intrusted  to  his  charge  for  their  pro- 
tection in  seizing  the  negroes  of  General  Greene's  friends, 
that  restitution  might  be  made  to  such  of  his  as  might 
suffer  under  these  oppressive  and  ruinous  measures. 
This,  he  stated,  was  the  object  of  the  late  expedition 
towards  the  Santee,  and  intimated  that  others  would 
follow  unless  the  confiscation  and  amercement  acts  were 
abandoned. 

General  Leslie  felt,  however,  the  necessity,  in  making 
this  communication,  of  explaining  or  justifying  in  some 
way  the  action  of  his  predecessors  in  their  conduct  towards 
the  estates  of  the  rebels,  as  they  termed  the  Whigs;  so 
he  proceeded :  — 


IN   THE   BEVOLUTION  633 

"To  point  out  to  you,  or  the  world,  the  distinction  between  tempo- 
rary sequestration  and  actual  confiscation  would  be  impertinent;  but 
it  will  by  no  means  be  so  to  observe  on  the  opposite  conduct  pursued 
by  each  party  in  carrying  into  execution  these  very  different  meas- 
ures; for  whilst  you  have  endeavored  to  involve,  in  perpetual  ruin, 
the  persons  and  estates  of  those  who  have  differed  from  you  in  politi- 
cal sentiments,  I  can  safely  appeal  even  to  those  whose  violent  opposi- 
tion to  the  King's  government  compelled  the  withholding  from  them  for 
a  time  their  possessions  in  this  province,  for  the  great  attention  which 
has  been  invariably  paid  to  their  property  —  the  connected  state  in 
which  it  has  been  preserved  —  and  the  liberal  allowances  that  were 
made  to  their  families,  in  so  much  that,  while  other  estates  were  run- 
ning to  waste  by  the  destruction  of  the  country,  these  have  greatly 
thriven  at  the  expense  of  the  government." 

On  the  other  hand,  General  Leslie  went  on  to  suggest 
that,  should  the  enforcement  of  the  confiscation  acts  be  sus- 
pended, and  General  Greene  should  think  a  meeting  of 
commissioners  on  each  side  might  tend  to  lessen  the 
devastations  of  the  war  and  secure  inviolate  the  property 
of  individuals,  he  would  have  a  peculiar  happiness  in  em- 
bracing proposals  that  might  accomplish  such  benevolent 
purposes. 

To  this  letter  General  Greene  returned  an  immediate 
answer  "  that  he  had  the  honor  to  command  the  forces  of 
the  United  States  in  the  Southern  Department,  but  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  internal  police  of  any  State."  On 
this  General  Leslie  addressed  himself  to  Governor  Math- 
ews, enclosing  the  letter  he  had  addressed  to  General 
Greene. 

Governor  Mathews  on  the  12th  returned  General  Leslie 
an  elaborate  reply,  in  the  course  of  which  he  wrote :  — 

"  I  would  not.  Sir,  give  an  hasty  answer  to  your  observations  on  this 
subject,  and  thought  myself  well  justified  in  deviating  from  the  rule 
of  politeness  in  delaying  an  answer,  that  I  might  have  an  oi3por- 
tunity  of  investigating  truth.  I  have  taken  much  pains  in  my 
inquiries,  the  result  of  which  has  been  the  most  indubitable  proofs, 


634  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

that  so  far  from  these  sequestered  estates  having  had  the  greatest  at- 
tention paid  to  them  —  being  preserved  in  a  connected  state  — and 
'greatly  thriven,'  most  of  them,  while  under  the  management  of 
your  sequestrator,  have  been  very  greatly  injured ;  many  have  been 
nearly  ruined,  and  others  altogether  so.  What  expense  the  British 
government  has  incurred  on  their  account  I  know  not,  but,  1  can  with 
confidence  assert  the  sequestered  estates  have  been  very  little  bene- 
fited thereby. 

"  I  will  now  appeal  to  a  fact  within  your  own  knowledge.  You 
know  that  great  numbers  of  the  negroes,  belonging  to  these  estates 
are  now  within  your  lines,  and  lost  to  their  owners.  And  on  few 
plantations  is  a  four-footed  animal  to  be  found.  How  then  do  you 
prove  that  the  estates  have  been  preserved  in  a  connected  state,  when 
one-half  of  some,  two-thirds  of  others,  and  the  whole  of  a  few  have 
been  deprived  of  the  negroes  and  stock  that  were  upon  them  when 
put  under  sequestration  ?  How  do  you  prove  that  these  estates  have 
greatly  thriven ;  and  that  the  greatest  attention  has  been  paid  to 
them? 

"  As  to  the  liberal  allowance  made  to  the  families  of  those  persons 
whose  estates  were  sequestered  :  this.  Sir,  I  must  beg  leave  to  say  you 
have  been  as  greatly  deceived  in,  as  the  other  parts  of  your  informa- 
tion. So  far  from  the  wives  and  children  having  been  allowed  the 
stipulated  sums  out  of  their  husbands'  and  fathers'  estates,  the  truth  is, 
that  after  much  entreaty,  and  in  many  instances  very  unbecoming 
treatment,  some  have  obtained  trifling  sums  compared  with  what  they 
were  entitled  to,  while  others  have  been  altogether  denied. 

"  On  this  ground  of  investigation  I  am  ready  to  meet  you,  Sir, 
whenever  you  think  proper,  when  I  will  undertake  to  produce  to  you 
the  proofs  for  everything  I  have  here  advanced. 

"  Your  observations  on  the  opposite  conduct  of  each  party  on  carry- 
ing into  execution  the  measures  of  sequestration  and  confiscation,  so 
far  from  being  founded  in  fact,  evidently  show  the  uniform  deception 
into  which  you  have  been  led. 

"  In  the  common  acceptation  of  the  word,  it  is  true,  sequestration 
means  no  more  than  a  temporary  privation  of  property ;  but  your 
sequestrator  general,  and  most  of  his  officers,  have  construed  this  word 
into  a  very  different  meaning  ;  and,  regardless  of  the  articles  of  capitu- 
lation of  Charlestown,  as  well  as  the  most  sacred  contracts  contained  in 
marriage  settlements,  every  species  of  property,  negroes,  plate,  house- 
hold furniture,  horses,  carriages,  cattle,  etc.,  have  been  indiscrimi- 


IN   THE  KEVOLUTION  635 

nately  torn  from  their  owners  by  persons  now  under  your  immediate 
command,  and  have  been  either  sent  beyond  seas,  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  had  taken  — I  had  almost  said  plundered  —  them,  or  now 
remains  within  your  lines,  and  in  either  case  lost  to  their  owners. 

Now,  Sir,  let  us  for  a  moment  view  the  conduct  of  the  legislature 
of  this  State  in  their  late  session.  The  most  sacred  regard  has  been 
paid  by  them  to  private  contracts ;  neither  marriage  settlements  nor 
the  faith  of  individuals  have  been  violated,  but  left  to  their  full  opera- 
tion. A  provision  was  also  made  for  the  families  of  those  whose  estates 
have  been  confiscated.  And  although  the  property  of  British  subjects 
within  this  State  has  been  confiscated,  yet  the  debts  due  to  them  from 
the  citizens  of  this  State  have  been  left  untouched.  And  be  assured, 
Sir,  whilst  I  have  the  honor  of  holding  the  rank  I  now  do,  it  shall  be 
my  particular  business  to  see  that  this,  as  well  as  every  other  law  of 
the  State,  is  executed  with  lenity,  fidelity,  and  integrity."  ^ 

The  result  of  this  correspondence  left  General  Greene 
to  expect  a  renewal  of  the  incursions  of  the  enemy,  as  well 
from  the  necessity  of  procuring  supplies  as  from  his  threat 
of  retaliation  on  account  of  the  Confiscation  Act.  Steps, 
indeed,  were  taken  to  carry  out  this  purpose.  The  com- 
missioner of  sequestration  prepared  galleys  and  other  ves- 
sels, which  were  manned  by  the  dismounted  troops,  whose 
horses  the  enemy  had  been  compelled  to  kill  for  want  of 
forage  with  which  to  feed  them,  and  stationed  in  the 
rivers  and  creeks  contiguous  to  the  valuable  estates,  to 
cover  the  shipment  of  produce  in  small  craft  and  convey- 
ing these  supplies  to  town.  Some  of  the  strongest  of 
these  vessels  were  sent  thirty  miles  up  the  Cooper  River.^ 

But  wliile  these  measures  were  in  preparation,  news 
from  England  came  which  induced  General  Leslie  to  with- 
hold the  attempt  to  carry  out  his  threat. 

On  the  22d  of  February  a  resolution  had  been  introduced 
in  the  House  of  Commons  in  England,  that  an  address 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  355-364. 

2  Narrative  of  John  Cruden,  Commissioner,  Winnowings  in  Am.  Hist., 
Revolutionary  Narrative,  No.  1. 


636  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

should  be  presented  to  his  Majesty  that  he  would  be 
pleased  to  give  directions  to  his  ministers  not  to  pursue 
any  longer  the  impracticable  object  of  reducing  his  Majes- 
ty's revolted  colonies  to  their  allegiance  by  a  war  on  the 
continent  of  America ;  and  to  assure  his  Majesty  that  his 
faithful  commons  would  most  cheerfully  concur  with  him 
in  such  measures  as  might  be  found  necessary  to  accelerate 
the  blessings  of  returning  peace.  The  resolution,  after  a 
very  warm  debate,  had  been  lost  —  but  by  only  one  vote. 
The  majority  of  only  one  on  the  side  of  the  ministry  proved 
that  their  influence  was  at  an  end ;  and  when,  five  days 
after,  it  was  renewed,  the  resolution  was  carried  without  a 
division. 1  A  few  days  after  a  commission  passed  the  grea^ 
seal  appointing  Sir  Guy  Carleton  commander-in-chief  in 
America,^  thus  superseding  Sir  Henry  Clinton.  Sir  Guy 
arrived  in  New  York  on  the  5th  of  May ,3  and  on  the  7th 
communicated  to  General  Washington  the  disposition  that 
prevailed  in  the  government  and  people  relative  to  the 
making  of  a  peace  with  the  Americans.* 

In  the  meanwhile  Congress  had,  on  the  23d  of  February, 
authorized  the  commander-in-chief  to  agree  to  the  ex- 
change of  Earl  Cornwallis,  provided  that  the  Honorable 
Henry  Laurens  should  be  liberated,  and  proper  assurances 
given  for  the  exchange  of  all  other  prisoners.^  Mr.  Lau- 
rens had  been  released  from  close  confinement  in  the 
Tower  on  the  31st  of  December  before,  but  was  under  a 
verbal  recognizance  to  appear  at  the  court  of  King's  Bench 
the  next  Easter  term,  and  not  to  depart  thence  without 
leave  of  the  court.  Though  still  anominal  prisoner  on  parole, 

1  Annual  liegister,  1782,  vol.  XXV,  167-168 ;  Wraxall's  Memoirs, 
vol,  II,  511,  522  ;  Gordon's  Am.  War,  vol.  IV,  229-230 ;  Bancroft's  Hist, 
of  the  U.S.,  vol.  V,  530. 

2  Gordon's  Am.  War,  vol.  IV,  231. 

8  Ibid. ,  249.  4  Ibid.  ,291.  ^  Ibid. ,  245. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  637 

Mr.  Laurens  was  busy  negotiating  the  treaty  of  peace 
which  he  was  to  sign  as  one  of  the  commissioners  on  the 
part  of  America.^  His  actual  exchange  for  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  was  not  communicated  to  General  Washington  until 
the  2d  of  August.2 

When  the  vote  of  the  British  Parliament  was  communi- 
cated to  General  Leslie,  he  proposed  to  General  Greene  a 
cessation  of  hostilities,  and  that  he  should  be  permitted  to 
purchase  and  receive  from  the  planters  such  subsistence  as 
he  needed.  The  subject  of  a  cessation  of  hostilities  Gen- 
eral Greene  referred  to  Congress ;  the  other  subject  he  re- 
ferred to  the  governor  and  council.  But  their  views  had 
already  been  communicated  to  General  Greene  in  a  request 
"  that  he  would  by  all  means  in  his  power  prevent  supplies 
from  going  into  Charlestown,  except  so  far  as  his  contracts 
respecting  clothing  made  it  necessary."  This  was  neces- 
sary, as  the  State  had  undertaken  to  supply  the  army  in 
kind.  To  have  opened  a  market  with  Charlestown  would 
have  been  to  drain  the  country  immediately,  and  perhaps 
have  protracted  the  stay  of  the  enemy  by  lessening  his 
inconveniences.  General  Leslie's  offer  was  therefore,  of 
course,  rejected,  and  he  thereupon  intimated  that,  however 
anxious  he  was  to  discontinue  the  horrors  of  war,  he  would 
take  provisions  by  force  wherever  they  could  be  obtained, 
and  immediately  commenced  preparation  for  that  purpose. 
To  meet  this  renewal  of  strife  General  Greene  determined 
to  reorganize  his  forces.  General  Marion,  who  had  rallied 
his  men  sufficiently  to  recross  the  Santee,  was  requested  to 
strengthen  himself  so  as  to  meet  the  enemy  in  that  quarter, 
whilst  a  strong  detachment  was  formed  under  General  Gist 
of  Maryland  to  cover  the  country  lying  south  and  west  of 
the  aT;my's  position.     The  cavalry  of  the  Legion  and  that 

1  Mr.  Laurens's  Narrative,  Coll.  So.  Ca.  Hist.  Soc,  vol.  I,  64  et  seq. 

2  Gordon's  Am.  War,  vol.  IV,  294. 


638  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  the  Third  and  Fourth  Virginian  regiments  united 
under  Colonel  Baylor ;  the  infantry  of  the  Legion,  the  dis- 
mounted dragoons  of  the  Third  Regiment,  the  Delaware 
Regiment,  and  one  hundred  men  detached  from  the  line 
commanded  by  Major  Beale,  the  whole  infantry  under 
the  command  of  Colonel  Laurens  formed  the  brigade  under 
the  command  of  General  Gist.^  Colonel  Henderson,  who 
had  been  appointed  brigadier-general  in  the  place  of  Sum- 
ter, was  with  Pickens,  who  had  returned  from  his  Indian 
campaign,  and  the  militia  under  these,  with  Marion,  were 
drawn  together  near  the  headquarters. 

Scarcely  had  Marion  reached  Dorchester,  when  the 
Loyalists  beyond  the  Pee  Dee,  with  the  celebrated  Major 
Gainey  at  their  head,  once  more  appeared  in  arms.  On  the 
28th  of  April  a  party  of  them,  commanded  by  Captain 
Jones,  surrounded  and  set  fire  to  the  house  of  Colonel 
Kolb  of  the  militia.  He,  after  receiving  assurance  of  being 
treated  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  surrendered ;  upon  which  he 
was  immediately  put  to  death  in  the  presence  of  his  wife 
and  children .2  From  this  time  the  Tories  in  this  section, 
disregarding  the  treaty  they  had  made  with  jNIarion  on  the 
17th  of  June,  1781,  had  become  more  troublesouie,  not  only 
to  the  people  of  this  State,  but  of  North  Carolina.  They 
now  appeared  in  such  large  force,  both  cavalry  and  in- 
fantry, that  it  became  necessary  to  detach  Marion  against 
them.  At  the  head  of  Maham's  cavalry  —  Maham  himself 
being  a  prisoner  as  already  related  —  Marion  proceeded 
upon  his  mission.  General  Greene's  instructions  to  him  on 
this  occasion,  which  were  in  consonance  with  his  own  senti- 
ments and  the  tenor  of  his  whole  conduct,  were  to  spare 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  329. 

2  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  371.  Ramsay  gives  the 
name  of  the  ofl&cer  m  command  of  this  party  as  "Jones,"  but  James 
gives  it  as  Gibson  (James's  Life  of  Marion,  166). 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  639 

the  unnecessary  effusion  of  blood.^  And  happily  these  he 
was  able  to  comply  with.  But  little  defence  was  made  by 
the  Tories ;  only  one  skirmish  took  place,  in  which,  however, 
Robert  James,  a  friend  of  the  general's,  was  wounded. 
At  Burch's  Mill  on  the  Pee  Dee,  in  what  is  now  Marion 
County,  about  ten  miles  west  of  the  present  town  of 
Marion,  another  treaty  was  signed  on  the  8th  of  June,  by 
which  Gainey's  party  agreed  to  lay  down  their  arms,  to 
demean  themselves  thereafter  as  peaceable  citizens,  to 
deliver  up  all  stolen  property,  to  apprehend  all  who  did 
not  accede  to  the  treaty  now  made,  to  take  all  deserters 
from  the  American  army,  to  return  them  to  their  allegiance, 
and  to  abjure  that  of  his  Britannic  Majesty.  From  this  treaty 
the  officer  in  command  of  the  party  who  killed  Colonel 
Kolb,  and  a  notorious  Tory  leader  in  North  Carolina  named 
Fanning  and  his  party,  were  excluded,  but  they  escaped. 
Under  this  treaty  at  least  five  hundred  men  laid  down 
their  arms  to  Marion. ^ 

As  usual,  Marion's  absence  was  the  signal  for  the  renewal 
of  depredations  between  the  Cooper  and  the  Santee. 
Colonel  Ashby  had  been  left  in  command  of  the  infantry, 
but  he  had  been  pressed  upon  and  compelled  to  retire,  so 
that  the  general  was  recalled  the  moment  he  had  quelled 
the  insurrection  of  the  Loyalists,  to  spread  his  shield  once 
more  over  the  country  which  had  so  long  been  the  object 
of  his  protecting  care.  But  had  he  not  been  joined  by  a 
new  corps  under  Major  Conyers,  he  must  have  come  alone. 
His  movements  had  been  so  rapid  that  Maham's  corps, 
broken  down  with  fatigue,  were  necessarily  left  in  his 
rear  to  recruit ;  the  militia  of  the  country  he  had  thought 
advisable  to  leave  under  Colonel  Baxter  to  hold  the 
Loyalists  in  check,  as  he  doubted  their  sincerity  and 
feared  they  would  rise  in  force,  plunder  the  country,  and 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  335. 
^  James's  Life  of  Marion^  167. 


640  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

move  down  with  their  spoil  to  a  fleet  the  enemy  had 
been  preparing  in  Charlestown  for  some  enterprise.  At 
Murray's  Ferry  he  halted  to  collect  his  militia,  and 
awaited  the  arrival  of  Maham ;  then,  having  under  an 
order  of  the  governor  consolidated  the  two  commands  of 
Maham  and  Conyers  into  one  regiment,  about  the  middle 
of  July  he  was  enabled  once  more  to  cross  the  Santee  at 
the  head  of  a  respectable  cavalry  and  about  three  hundred 
infantry.  With  these  he  took  post  on  the  Wassamasaw 
road,  in  St.  James's,  Goose  Creek,  in  a  position  secure  from 
sudden  attack,  and  calculated  for  easy  cooperation  with 
the  detachment  of  the  main  army,  in  covering  the  country. 

General  Leslie  now  prepared  to  carry  into  effect  his 
threat  of  seizing  provisions  wherever  he  could  find  them, 
and  late  in  July  a  numerous  fleet  of  small  boats,  carrying 
eight  hundred  men  and  convoyed  by  galleys  and  armed 
brigs,  issued  from  Charlestown,  destined,  as  it  was  thought, 
against  Georgetown.  Marion  was  immediately  ordered  to 
that  place.^  After  a  forced  march  of  about  four  days  he 
arrived  at  White's  bridge,  but  found  no  enemy  in  that 
neighborhood.  In  this  march  of  about  160  miles  Marion's 
men  had  but  one  ration  of  rice  ;  the  rest  was  lean  beef.^ 

Georgetown  was  not  the  destination  of  the  expedition. 
It  was  directed  to  another  point.  The  collection  of  rice 
was  its  object,  which  could  best  be  secured  upon  the  Santee, 
and  the  enemy  succeeded  in  carrying  off  from  that  river 
about  six  hundred  barrels  without  interruption.  Marion's 
force  was  now  thrown  over  Sampit  River  so  as  to  overtake 
their  march  to  Georgetown,  but  it  was  impossible  to  pre- 
vent their  plunder  of  the  plantations  under  the  guns  of 
the  galleys.  In  taking  the  rice,  however,  the  enemy  left 
receipts  for  the  amount  taken  except  in  two  instances,  — 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  334,  336. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  166. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  641 

one,  of  the  rice  taken  from  the  plantation  of  the  estate  of 
Thomas  Lynch,  Jr.,  who  had  signed  the  Declaration  of 
Independence ;  and  the  other  of  Mr.  Neyle,  who  had  fallen 
in  the  siege  of  Charlestown.^ 

The  enemy  having  left  the  Santee,  Marion  was  ordered 
to  take  post  at  Wadboo,  as  the  return  of  the  fleet  into  port 
suggested  the  probability  of  some  enterprise  up  the  rivers 
communicating  with  the  town.  But  their  next  movement 
was  against  Combahee,  and  after  depositing  the  spoil  col- 
lected they  set  sail,  and  arrived  a  few  days  after  in  the  port 
of  Beaufort. 

The  light  brigade,  under  General  Gist,  soon  after  it  was 
formed,  took  a  position  in  advance  of  the  army  near  the 
Stono.  Colonel  Laurens,  still  charged  with  conducting 
the  intercourse  of  intelligence  with  his  secret  agents  in 
Charlestown,  had  a  guard  assigned  him  at  his  own  request, 
by  order  of  General  Greene,  and  took  a  position  beyond 
the  line  of  pickets  of  the  brigade,  near  to  Wappoo  Creek. 
Here  they  remained  comparatively  inactive  until  intelli- 
gence was  received  of  the  sailing  of  the  foraging  fleet  to 
the  southward. 

As  General  Greene  had  other  channels  of  communica- 
tion with  Charlestown  besides  those  kept  open  by  Laurens, 
he  received  intelligence  of  that  event  a  day  before  it 
reached  Colonel  Laurens.  Orders  were  immediately 
despatched  to  General  Gist,  dated  the  23d  of  August,  to 
march  to  the  protection  of  the  country  on  the  Combahee, 
where  a  quantity  of  provisions,  both  public  and  private, 
was  then  lying.  Not  thinking  it  advisable  to  withdraw 
Colonel  Laurens  from  a  post  so  highly  confidential  and 
important  as  that  which  he  then  occupied  at  Wappoo, 
under  the  immediate  orders  of  General  Greene,  Gist  moved 
on  to  the  southward  without  issuing   orders  to   Colonel 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  336. 

VOL.  IV.  —  2t 


642  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAEOLINA 

Laurens  to  join  him.  But  the  ardor  of  the  latter,  says 
Johnson,  was  not  to  be  restrained  when  the  longed-for 
opportunity  for  enterprise  presented  itself.  In  a  hurried 
scrawl  to  Greene  of  the  24th,  probably  the  last  words  Colonel 
Laurens  ever  wrote,  conveying  the  intelligence  of  the  Com- 
bahee  expedition,  he  says,  "I  forward  you  '^he  enclosed 
which  I  have  just  received  —  vague  intelligence  reached 
me  of  the  march  of  the  light  troops  —  will  you  be  so  good 
as  to  inform  me  whether  anything  is  likely  to  be  done?" 

It  was  enough  that  General  Gist  was  ordered  to  strike 
at  the  enemy.  Laurens,  though  laboring  under  an  ague, 
and  actually  in  bed  with  it  when  he  heard  of  Gist's  march, 
arose,  hurried  away,  and  overtook  the  brigade  on  the  nortli 
bank  of  the  Combahee  River  near  the  ferry.  The  enemy 
had  landed  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  and  the  cav- 
alry had  been  ordered  round  by  the  Salkehatchie  bridge  to 
join  the  militia,  who  had  collected  in  that  quarter,  seek- 
ing an  opportunity  for  striking  at  the  enemy. 

Twelve  miles  below  the  ferry,  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Combahee,  the  extreme  end  of  Chehaw  Neck  approaches 
the  bed  of  the  river,  which  generally  between  these  points 
is  bordered  by  extensive  swamps  and  rice  fields.  At  this 
point  General  Gist  had  ordered  a  work  to  be  thrown  up  for 
the  purpose  of  annoying  the  enemy  in  their  retreat,  and 
Colonel  Laurens  solicited  the  command  of  the  enterprise 
at  that  post.  Fifty  infantry  with  some  matrosses  and  a 
howitzer  were  ordered  out  under  his  command;  and  on 
the  evening  of  the  26th  he  moved  down  the  river,  halting 
at  a  plantation  near  enough  to  take  post  at  Chehaw  by 
daylight  the  ensuing  morning. 

The  night,  it  is  stated,  was  spent  in  all  the  enjoyments 
of  hospitality  and  female  society,  and  the  company  did  not 
separate  until  two  hours  before  the  time  when  the  detach- 
ment  must   be   put   in   motion.     Ere  the  sun  rose  upon 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  648 

Laurens  the  next  morning  he  was  a  stiffened  corpse,  and 
his  two  companions  of  the  evening's  festivity  lay  wounded 
in  the  field. 

The  enemy  were  disappointed  in  their  expectation  of 
collecting  rice  on  the  south  side  of  the  Combahee ;  all  that 
could  be  spared  from  the  subsistence  of  the  people  had 
been  drawn  from  that  side  of  the  river  for  the  use  of 
Wayne's  army  in  Georgia,  which  had  been  supplied  alto- 
gether from  Carolina.  The  light  brigade  arrived  in  time 
to  prevent  their  foraging  on  the  north  side  ;  and  upon  the 
advance  of  the  militia  and  cavalry  and  the  commencement 
of  the  work  below  them,  their  troops  were  silently  em- 
barked in  the  night,  and,  by  slipping  their  anchors  and 
dropping  down  with  the  tide,  the  departure  of  the  vessels 
from  their  moorings  was  not  perceived  until  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning. 

General  Gist  immediately  anticipated  the  danger  to 
which  Laurens  was  exposed,  and  despatching  an  express 
to  him  with  the  intelligence,  and  being  joined  by  his  cav- 
alry, which  had  swum  the  river  the  preceding  evening,  he 
moved  off  with  all  possible  expedition  at  their  head  to  the 
support  of  Laurens,  leaving  orders  for  his  infantry  to 
hasten  after  him.  But  the  mischief  was  already  done. 
The  enemy  had  either  received  information  of  the  march- 
ing of  the  detachment,  or  had  rightly  concluded  that  the 
brigade,  or  a  detachment  from  it,  would  be  hastened  on  to 
Chehaw  to  annoy  them  in  their  retreat.  Landing,  there- 
fore, on  the  north  bank  of  the  river,  and  pushing  into  the 
road  that  communicates  with  the  Point,  a  British  officer, 
with  a  detachment  of  140  men,  lay  in  ambuscade  in 
a  place  covered  with  fennel  and  high  grass,  and  were 
undiscovered  until  they  rose  to  fire  on  the  unsuspecting 
Laurens. 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  Laurens  had  commenced 


644  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

his  march,  and  altogether  unsuspicious  of  danger,  he  was 
on  horseback  with  his  advanced  guard  when  the  enemy 
was  discovered.  His  decision  was  promptly  taken  not  to 
retreat  or  surrender ;  the  only  alternati  /e  the  case  admitted 
of  was  a  daring  charge.  Laurens  dashed  forward,  calling 
on  his  men  to  follow.  But  he  fell  at  the  first  fire,  as  did 
also  Captain  Smith  of  the  artillery,  and  the  men  were 
thrown  into  confusion. 

The  howitzer  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands,  and  the  infan- 
try had  retreated  in  confusion  a  quarter  of  a  mile  when 
they  were  met  by  General  Gist.  The  enemy  soon  discon- 
tinued the  pursuit,  and  drew  up  under  cover  of  a  wood 
near  the  border  of  the  river.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
dislodge  them  from  this  after  the  infantry  came  up,  but  it 
failed  and  was  attended  with  some  loss.  The  British  force 
was  covered  by  logs  and  brush,  so  as  to  be  inaccessible  to 
cavalry,  and  their  force  in  infantry  was  much  beyond  that 
of  Gist's  command.  Nothing  was  recovered  on  their 
debarkation  except  the  horses  of  the  artillery. 

The  enemy  sustained  no  loss  on  this  occasion  that  was 
known.  That  of  the  Americans  was,  for  their  small  force, 
very  serious.  Besides  Colonel  Laurens,  a  corporal  of  the 
Legion  cavalry  was  killed,  three  commissioned  officers, 
sixteen  rank  and  file  were  wounded,  and  three  missing, 
probably  made  prisoners. 

It  was  with  extreme  affliction,  says  Johnson,  whose 
account  of  this  action  has  been  followed,  that  General 
Greene  heard  of  the  fall  of  Colonel  Laurens.  He  had 
been  chagrined  (and  had  expressed  it)  at  his  leaving  a 
post  and  an  employment  so  critically  important,  at  this 
juncture,  to  the  safety  of  the  army;  for  it  was  when 
Marion  had  his  hands  full  with  Fraser  and  the  enemy  was 
threatening  an  attack  on  their  weakened  army;  when 
intelligence    from    town    was    all    important    and    honor 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  G45 

required  that  the  personal  security  of  his  secret  agents 
should  not  be  confided  to  any  other  man  than  him  whom 
they  had  trusted;  and  when  the  direct  route  to  surprise 
Greene  or  to  throw  troops  in  the  rear  of  Gist  was  by 
Wappoo  —  that  Colonel  Laurens  had  left  his  post,  simply 
contenting  himself  with  announcing  "that  he  would  return 
with  all  possible  expedition."  But  every  other  feeling 
with  the  general,  it  is  said,  was  absorbed  in  profound  grief 
for  his  loss,  for  it  was  not  only  a  gallant  soldier  and  a  tried 
patriot  that  had  fallen,  but  an  amiable  companion,  a  fast 
friend,  and  one  of  whose  influence  and  popularity  in  the 
State  his  army  had  great  need,  had  been  cut  off  at  a  most 
critical  period.^ 

General  Greene's  criticism  upon  Laurens's  conduct, 
which  ended  so  tragically,  unhappily  was  most  just.  Lau- 
rens's ambition  to  be  foremost  in  any  fray  had  led  him  into 
a  gross  violation  of  soldierly  duty,  the  abandonment  of  an 
important  post  which  imperilled  the  safety  and  honor  of 
others.  But  the  world  forgives  much  where  personal 
bravery  induces  the  fault  and  death  follows  its  commis- 
sion. In  announcing  his  fall  in  general  orders  to  the 
army.  General  Greene  says :  "  His  fall  was  glorious,  but  his 
fate  is  much  to  be  lamented.  The  army  has  lost  a  brave 
officer  and  the  public  a  worthy  citizen."  In  a  private  let- 
ter he  justly  said:  "Poor  Laurens  has  fallen  in  a  paltry 
little  skirmish.  You  knew  his  temper  and  I  predicted  his 
fate.  The  love  of  military  glory  made  him  seek  it  upon 
occasions  unworthy  of  his  rank.  The  State  will  feel  his 
loss."  This  rashness  in  the  pursuit  of  military  glory,  it 
will  be  remembered,  had  three  years  before,  during  Pre- 
vost's  invasion,  within  but  a  few  miles  of  the  scene  of  this 
disastrous  affair,  led  him  to  a  similar  violation  of  orders  in 
crossing  the  Tullifiny  and  attacking  the  enemy,  instead 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  339,  341. 


646  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

merely  of  covering  the  retreat  of  the  rear  guard  as  directed 
by  Moultrie.  Then  he  had  escaped  with  only  a  severe 
wound  and  the  expression  of  Moultrie's  displeasure.  Now 
he  falls,  and  his  country  forgets  all  but  that  he  died  bravely 
in  her  defence.^ 

1  The  two  Laurenses,  father  and  son,  —  Henry  and  John,  —  were  the 
most  conspicuous  figures  from  South  Carolina  in  and  near  the  congres- 
sional government  during  the  Revolution.  They  were  the  great  national 
figures  from  South  Carolina,  as  the  term  would  now  be  applied.  The  old 
delegates  who  had  taken  so  prominent  a  part  in  Congress  prior  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  were  no  longer  present  in  its  hall.  Gadsden 
had  been  first  detained  at  Charlestown  in  the  military  service,  and  then 
in  exile  and  in  prison.  John  Rutledge,  as  president  and  then  governor  of 
the  State,  had  had  his  hands  full  at  home.  Henry  Middleton,  an  old  man, 
had  retired,  and  his  son  Arthur  was  with  Gadsden  in  exile.  The  two 
Lynches,  father  and  son,  were  both  dead.  Edward  Rutledge  and  Thomas 
Hey  ward,  Jr.,  were  also  in  exile.  William  Henry  Drayton,  with  his  great 
abilities  and  restless  energies,  had  been  transferred  with  Henry  Laurens 
from  the  Council  of  Safety  of  the  State  to  Congress, but  he,  too,  had  died, 
leaving  Laurens  the  only  one  of  the  old  Revolutionary  set  in  its  halls. 
There  he  had  taken  a  high  and  leading  position,  becoming  President  of 
the  Congress,  as  the  position  of  what  was  then  the  presidency  of  the 
United  States  was  styled.  He  was  President  during  a  most  eventful 
period.  It  was  during  his  presidency,  1777-1778,  that  the  Articles  of  Con- 
federation were  adopted,  that  the  offers  of  the  British  Peace  Commission 
were  received  and  rejected,  that  the  treaty  with  France  was  made. 
Then  he  was  appointed  minister  plenipotentiary  from  the  United  States 
to  Holland,  and  on  his  voyage  was  captured  by  the  British  and  thrown 
into  the  Tower  of  London,  where  he  was  held  for  the  rest  of  the  war  as 
the  most  important  State  prisoner  in  the  power  of  the  Royal  government, 
and  ultimately  exchanged  for  Lord  Cornwallis,  the  most  important  British 
personage  in  the  hands  of  the  Americans.  He  repaired  to  Paris  where, 
with  Benjamin  Franklin,  John  Adams,  and  John  Jay,  he  signed  the  pre- 
liminaries of  peace,  on  the  30th  of  November,  1782,  by  which  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  United  States  was  acknowledged.  And  so  it  happened 
that  the  name  of  Henry  Laurens  is  found  inscribed  upon  some  of  the 
most  striking  and  important  State  papers  in  the  history  of  the  country, 
to  wit :  to  the  adoption  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation  in  1778,  to  the 
treaty  with  France  in  the  same  year,  and  to  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain 
in  1782,  by  which  the  independence  of  the  United  States  was  secured. 

The  career  of  his  son,  John  Laurens,  was  scarcely  less  distinguished 


IN  THE  EEVOLUTION  647 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  all  the  fighting  that  had  been 
done  in  South  Carolina  during  the  last  three  years,  that 

in  the  history  of  the  country  at  large.  Born  in  1755  and  educated  in 
Europe  —  in  Geneva  and  London  —  he  was  a  student  of  law  at  the 
Temple  when  the  Revolution  began,  when,  making  his  way  home  with 
difficulty,  in  1777,  then  but  twenty-two  years  of  age,  — no  doubt  through 
the  influence  of  his  father,  at  the  time  President  of  the  Congress,  —  he 
was  at  once  taken  into  the  military  family  of  General  Washington.  His 
position  near  Washington  was  doubtless  owing,  as  we  say,  to  his  father's 
influence,  then  so  great ;  but  John  Laurens  was  not  one  to  owe  his  reten- 
tion in  any  position  to  the  favor  of  another,  though  that  other  was  his 
own  father.  He  soon  found  opportunities  of  distinguishing  himself  in  the 
battles  of  Germantown  and  Monmouth  ;  then  allowed  to  attach  himself, 
in  1778,  to  the  army  in  Ilhode  Island,  where  the  most  active  service  was 
expected  in  the  final  operations  of  the  French  under  D'Estaing,  and  the 
Americans  under  Sullivan,  he  so  distinguished  himself  in  command  of 
some  light  troops  with  which  he  was  intrusted  that,  as  we  have  had  occa- 
sion to  state  in  a  preceding  volume,  he  was  by  resolution  of  Congress 
given  the  rank  of  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  Continental  line  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-three  years.  Hastening  to  his  native  State  when  the  tide  of 
war  turned  upon  her,  we  have  seen  his  conspicuous  conduct  in  resisting 
the  invasion  of  the  British  under  Provost,  have  seen  him  the  first  to 
mount  the  British  redoubt  at  Savannah,  and  taking  part  in  defence  of 
Chariestown  in  1780.  Taken  a  prisoner  upon  the  capitulation  of  the  city, 
he  was  soon  released,  his  exchange  having  been  expedited  by  Congress  for 
the  ulterior  purpose  of  sending  him  as  a  special  minister  to  Paris,  "  that  he 
might  urge  the  necessity  of  a  more  vigorous  cooperation  on  the  part  of 
France."  This,  it  will  be  recollected,  was  the  crucial  period  when  the 
French  fleet  and  army,  previously  sent  under  de  Ternay  and  Rochambeau, 
lay  cooped  up  at  Newport  by  the  ascendency  of  the  British  in  American 
waters,  and  the  only  obstacle  to  the  prosecution  and  perhaps  fulfilment  of  the 
British  ministerial  plan  of  carrying  the  war  "from  the  South  to  the  North," 
lay  in  the  uprising  of  the  people  of  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia,  and  the 
splendid  service  of  the  partisan  bands.  We  have  seen  John  Laurens,  in 
1778,  refusing  the  promotion  tendered  him  by  Congress,  lest  it  might 
give  rise  to  jealousies  in  others,  and  thus  disturb  the  harmony  of  officers 
of  the  line  and  his  colleagues  in  the  family  of  the  commander-in-chief. 
So  now,  again,  acting  from  the  same  generous  and  noble  purpose,  he  rec- 
ommended and  urged  that  Alexander  Hamilton  should  be  sent  in  pref- 
erence to  himself.  Congress,  however,  adhered  to  their  first  choice,  and 
John  Laurens  was,  on  the  23d  of  December,  1780,  commissioned  special 


648  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Colonel  Laurens  was  but  the  second  Continental  officer  of 
as  high  a  rank  as  that  of  lieutenant-colonel  who  had  fallen, 

minister  at  the  court  of  Versailles,  and  sailed  for  France.  Within  six 
months  from  the  day  Colonel  Laurens  left  America  he  returned,  and 
brought  with  him  the  conceded  plan  of  combined  operations,  which  ended 
at  Yorktown.  Garden  tells  the  following  anecdote,  upon  the  authority 
of  William  Jackson,  the  secretary  of  the  legation,  of  Laurens's  conduct  in 
this  mission,  which,  however  apocryphal,  illustrates,  at  least,  the  energy 
with  which  Laurens  acted,  if  at  the  expense  of  his  real  diplomatic  skill, 
to  which  his  success  was  more  probably  really  owing  :  — 

' '  When  sent  by  Congress  to  negotiate  a  loan  from  the  French  govern- 
ment (for  that  was  a  part  of  his  mission),  although  his  reception  was 
favorable  and  encouragement  given  that  his  request  would  be  granted, 
yet  the  delays  perpetually  contrived  by  the  minister,  the  Count  de  Ver- 
gennes,  afforded  little  prospect  of  immediate  success.  Convinced  that 
procrastination  would  be  a  death-blow  to  Independence,  he  resolved,  in 
defiance  of  all  the  etiquette  of  the  court,  to  make  a  personal  appeal  to  the 
King.  Dr.  Franklin,  our  minister  at  Versailles,  vehemently  opposed  his 
intention,  and,  finding  Laurens  firm  in  his  purpose,  he  said,  '  I  most  cor- 
dially wish  you  success,  but  anticipate  so  different  a  result,  that  I  warn 
you  —  I  wash  my  hands  of  the  consequences.'  Accordingly,  at  the  first 
levee.  Colonel  Laurens,  walking  directly  up  to  the  King,  delivered  a  me- 
morial to  which  he  solicited  his  most  serious  attention,  and  said,  '  Should 
the  favor  asked  be  denied,  or  even  delayed,  there  is  cause  to  fear  that  the 
sword  which  I  wear  may  no  longer  be  drawn  in  the  defence  of  the  liberties 
of  my  country,  but  be  wielded  as  a  British  subject  against  the  Monarchy 
of  France.'  His  decision  met  with  the  reward  it  merited.  Apologies  were 
made  for  delays.  The  minister  gave  his  serious  attention  to  the  subject, 
and  the  negotiations  were  crowned  with  success." 

And  so  it  was  that  while  Sumter  and  Marion  and  their  volunteer- 
partisan  followers  in  South  Carolina  were  desperately  throwing  themselves 
across  the  path  of  the  invader  who  was  hurrying  on  in  his  triumphal  march 
to  reach  the  Chesapeake  before  the  further  assistance  could  be  obtained 
from  France,  another  son  of  the  State  in  Paris,  disregarding  form  and 
ceremony,  was  demanding  and  extorting  from  the  king  of  France,  the 
promised  but  long-delayed  assistance.  Sumter  and  Marion  in  the  hills  and 
swamps  of  South  Carolina,  and  John  Laurens  in  Paris,  were  all  uncon- 
sciously, yet  in  support  of  each  other,  simultaneously  playing  great  parts 
in  the  same  great  drama  in  which  the  future  of  the  whole  United  States 
of  America  was  at  stake. 

Upon  his  return  from  Paris,  immediately  joining  the  army  and  resum- 
ing his  place  as  one  of  the  aides  of  General  Washington,  Colonel  Laurens 


IN   THE   EBVOLUTION  649 

the  first  having  been  Colonel  Owen  Roberts  of  the  artillery, 
who  fell  at  Stono. 

From  the  Combahee  the  enemy  passed  into  Broad  River, 
in  what  is  now  Beaufort  County,  and  successively  ascended 
the  smaller  streams  communicating  with  it,  carrying  off 
with  them  all  the  provisions  and  live-stock  they  could  col- 
lect. From  thence  they  put  into  Beaufort  harbor  and  laid 
the  islands  of  Beaufort  and  St.  Helena  under  contribution. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  a  party  of  infantry  posted  at 
Wadboo  attracted  the  attention  of  the  enemy.  Marion 
was  supposed  to  be  in  Georgetown  with  the  cavalry.  The 
rapidity  of  his  movements  had  prevented  the  knowledge  of 
his  return,  and  the  party  there  was  supposed  to  be  only 
that  under  Ashby.  Early  on  the  morning  of  the  29th  of 
August  Marion  received  intelligence  of  the  advance  of 
Major  Eraser  with  about  a  hundred  dragoons,  with  the 
intent,  as  it  was  reported,  to  surprise  his  pickets,  above  him 
at  Biggin  bridge  and  below  him  at  Strawberry  Ferry. 
It  happened  unfortunately  that  his  cavalry  were  at  the  time 
absent  patrolling  down  the  river;    but  messengers  were 

took  part  in  the  siege  of  Yorktown,  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  render 
possible  by  hastening,  if  not  procuring,  the  coming  of  the  second 
French  fleet  under  De  Grasse  ;  and  in  the  final  struggle  of  the  siege, 
with  Colonel  Hamilton,  he  led  the  storming  parties  of  the  American 
forces,  and  he  at  the  head  of  eighty  men,  turned  the  redoubt,  taking 
the  garrison  in  reverse,  and  intercepting  their  retreat.  Then  with  the 
Viscount  de  Noailles,  representing  the  French,  he,  representing  the 
Americans,  had  negotiated  the  terms  of  Cornwallis's  surrender.  Hence, 
probably,  the  inspiration  of  their  requiring  of  his  lordship  the  same 
terms  as  had  been  required  of  Lincoln  at  his  surrender  of  Charlestown. 
So  John  Laurens  negotiated  the  terms  of  Cornwallis's  surrender,  which 
released  his  father,  Henry  Laurens,  from  the  Tower  in  exchange,  and 
enabled  his  father  to  take  part  in  negotiating  the  treaty  with  Great 
Britain  acknowledging  the  independence  of  the  Thirteen  States. 

Then  hurrying  back  to  his  own  State  where  the  war  still  lingered,  John 
Laurens  again  took  the  field  to  perish  in  an  insignificant  affair  with  which 
he  had  no  call  or  duty  to  take  part. 


650  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

immediately  despatched  to  call  in  both  the  cavalry  and  the 
pickets,  and  some  of  the  latter  had  joined  him  before  the 
enemy  appeared.  It  was  not  without  some  uneasiness  that 
Marion  prepared  to  receive  the  enemy,  for  the  greatest  part 
of  his  force  consisted  of  what  was  then  called  new-made 
Whigs.  These  were  the  men  who  had  left  the  enemy  in 
consequence  of  Governor  Rutledge's  proclamation  offering 
pardon  to  all,  with  certain  exceptions,  who  would  leave 
the  enemy  within  a  specified  time,  and  join  the  American 
forces.  But  perhaps,  as  it  has  been  observed,  he  could  not 
have  had  a  set  of  men  to  command  more  deeply  interested 
in  securing  themselves  by  victory  against  the  British  ven- 
geance. It  is  not  probable  that  any  one,  if  taken  and  recog- 
nized by  the  enemy,  would  have  escaped  military  execution. 

The  enemy,  having  taken  some  of  Marion's  outposts, 
and  approached  by  an  unfrequented  route,  advanced  upon 
him  in  full  confidence  of  all  the  advantages  of  a  surprise ; 
but  they  found  him  ready,  drawn  up  to  meet  them,  his 
main  body  in  an  avenue  of  trees  before  the  house  of  Dr. 
Fayssoux,  and  his  left,  by  which  the  enemy  must  approach, 
advanced  a  few  paces  under  cover  of  some  small  buildings. 
The  latter  were  ordered  to  reserve  their  fire  until  the 
enemy  approached  within  thirty  yards,  and  the  main  body 
to  reserve  theirs  until  further  orders. 

The  enemy  came  on  at  a  full  charge,  but  Marion's  troops 
behaved  with  coolness ;  and  when  the  left  delivered  their 
fire  as  ordered,  the  enemy  recoiled  in  confusion,  leaving  a 
captain  and  several  men  and  horses  dead  upon  the  field. 
They  soon  rallied,  and  attempted  to  turn  his  right  and 
then  his  left  flank ;  but  by  changing  his  front,  and  avail- 
ing himself  of  the  cover  of  the  buildings  and  fences, 
he  rendered  it  too  hazardous  for  the  enemy  to  attempt  a 
second  charge,  and  they  retired  on  the  route  that  leads  by 
Quinby  to  Daniel's  Island. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  651 

A  single  fire  terminated  this  action,  but  it  had  seldom 
happened  that  a  single  fire  had  done  equal  execution  on 
the  same  number  of  men.  One  officer  and  eight  men 
were  killed,  three  officers  and  eight  men  were  wounded. 
Five  horses  fell  dead  on  the  field,  a  few  were  taken,  and 
many  wounded.  The  Americans  sustained  no  loss  in 
men,  but  a  very  severe  loss  of  another  kind.  The  driver 
of  their  ammunition  wagon  took  fright,  and  made  off 
with  his  charge  in  a  direction  which  enabled  the  enemy  to 
capture  it.  Marion  soon  discovered  his  loss,  but  was  with- 
out cavalry  to  retrieve  it.  A  party  of  five  men  on  captured 
horses  attempted  it,  but  failed.  Soon  after  the  enemy 
moved  off  Major  Conyers  arrived  with  his  cavalry ;  but 
before  he  could  overtake  them.  Major  Fraser  had  formed  a 
junction  with  a  detachment  of  infantry  that  had  advanced 
up  the  Wando  to  support  him,  and  Marion's  loss  of  ammu- 
nition obliged  him  to  retreat  once  more  towards  Santee. 
Here  ended  Marion's  warfare.^  During  the  remainder  of 
the  summer  he  frequently  changed  his  encampments  from 
place  to  place  between  the  Cooper  and  the  Santee  rivers, 
with  three  objects  in  view,  —  to  cut  ofP  supplies  from  the 
enemy,  to  prevent  all  surprises  from  their  sudden  irrup- 
tions, and  to  provide  for  his  own  men.  His  scouting 
parties  still  penetrated  into  St.  Thomas's  Parish  as  far  as 
Daniel's  Island  and  Clement's  Ferry  on  the  Cooper.  At 
the  head  of  one  of  these,  Captain  G.  S.  Capers  performed 
a  gallant  action.  Having  the  command  of  only  twelve 
men,  he  encountered  a  party  of  twenty-six  British  black 
dragoons,  and  cut  them  to  pieces.  They  had  at  the  time 
two  or  three  of  his  neighbors  in  handcuffs  as  prisoners.^ 

General  Gist,  though  reenforced  by  a  six-pounder  with 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  336-338  ;  James's  Life  of  Marion, 
168,  169. 

2  James's  Life  of  Marion,  169. 


652  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

some  matrosses  and  infantry,  did  not  venture  to  cross  the 
Combahee  until,  by  the  enemy's  landing  troops  on  Beaufort 
and  St.  Helena  islands,  he  was  satisfied  it  was  not  a  feint 
to  draw  him  off  from  covering  the  provisions  on  the  north 
of  the  Combahee.  On  the  2d  of  September  he  crossed 
the  river  and  pressed  down  to  Port  Royal  Ferry.  There 
he  found  the  Balfour  and  another  galley  lying,  and  having 
gained  an  advantageous  position  for  his  field-piece.  Lieu- 
tenant Bocker,  who  commanded  it,  soon  made  the  galleys 
slip  their  cables  and  attempt  to  escape.  In  this  the  Bal- 
four galley  ran  aground  and  was  abandoned  by  the  crew. 
The  crew  did  not  leave  without  scuttling  the  vessel  and 
spiking  her  guns,  but  this  was  done  so  hastily  that  she 
was  easily  repaired  and  secured  under  the  guns  of  the 
brigade. 

The  enemy  was  recalled  on  the  6th  by  the  arrival  of 
a  fleet  to  convoy  the  army,  which  it  had  now  been  officially 
announced  would  soon  evacuate  the  city.  As  soon  as  the 
enemy  passed  the  bar  of  Beaufort,  General  Gist  hastened 
back  to  reenforce  the  main  army,  and  nothing  more 
occurred  during  the  war  in  which  this  brigade  was  en- 
gaged. But  this  expedition  in  the  rice  fields  in  the 
months  of  August  and  September  had  nearly  invalided  the 
whole  of  these  troops.  The  general  himself  did  not  escape, 
and  the  number  on  the  sick  list  was  greatly  increased  on 
their  return  to  camp. 

When  General  Leslie's  foraging  expeditions  set  out,  the 
one  to  Wadboo,  and  the  other  to  Combahee,  in  the  hope 
of  recalling  them.  General  Greene  put  his  whole  army  in 
motion  down  the  Ashley  road,  feigning  a  design  on  James 
Island,  while  Pickens,  at  the  head  of  the  militia,  was 
ordered  down  between  the  Ashley  and  the  Cooper  to 
draw  the  attention  of  the  enemy  to  his  post  at  the  Quarter 
House.     The  feint  did  not  succeed  in  its  principal  object. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  653 

but  their  posts  at  the  Quarter  House  and  on  the  islands 
were  abandoned,  and  the  troops  drawn  in  under  the  pro- 
tection of  their  redoubts.  General  Pickens  continued  in 
command  of  his  own  brigade  and  General  Henderson's 
until  September,  when  he  organized  and  conducted  a  last 
expedition  against  the  Indians  on  the  frontier,  who  had 
again  become  troublesome.^ 

When  the  British  general,  Clarke,  in  Savannah,  found 
his  bounds  contracted  by  General  Wayne's  movements,  he 
sent  expresses  to  the  Creek  and  Cherokee  nations  request- 
ing assistance  of  the  Indian  allies.  This  assistance  was 
provided  by  some  of  the  leading  warriors  of  both  nations, 
but  Pickens's  expedition  in  April  had  disconcerted  the 
movement.  Though  the  grand  council  did  not  sanction 
a  continuance  of  the  war  in  alliance  with  the  British, 
whose  power  they  saw  was  rapidly  passing  away,  a  few 
warriors  determined  to  comply  with  the  promises  made, 
and  three  hundred  Creeks,  headed  by  Guvistersigo,  who 
stood  high  in  the  opinion  of  his  countrymen  for  bravery 
and  military  skill,  set  out  from  the  nations  for  Savannah 
early  in  the  month  of  June.  So  stealthily  did  these  war- 
riors approach,  that  but  for  an  accidental  change  of  his 
camp,  General  Wayne  would  have  been  captured  by  them. 
A  smart  action  took  place  on  the  23d  of  June  in  which 
Guvistersigo  with  seventeen  of  his  warriors  and  white 
guides  were  left  dead  on  the  field,  and  twelve  taken  pris- 
oners, who  were  shot  a  few  hours  after  by  order  of  Gen- 
eral Wayne.  The  American  loss  was  only  four  killed  and 
eight  wounded. 

As  the  limits  of  the  British  lines  became  more  and  more 
contracted,  a  number  of  those  who  adhered  to  the  Royal 
cause  were  unwilling  to  be  confined  within  their  narrow- 
ing circle,  and  General  Clarke  conceived  that  they  could 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  346. 


654  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

render  him  an  essential  service  by  retiring  to  the  Cherokee 
Nation.  At  the  head  of  these  was  one  Colonel  Thomas 
Waters,  who  had  formed  a  settlement  on  Hightown  River 
at  the  mouth  of  Longs vvamp  Creek,  in  what  is  now  Wilkes 
County,  Georgia,  where  they  had  collected  a  number  of 
negroes,  horses,  cattle,  and  other  property,  which  they  had 
plundered  from  the  frontiers  of  Georgia  and  Carolina. 

To  break  up  this  banditti.  General  Pickens  now  applied 
to  Governor  Mathews  to  be  allowed  to  carry  another 
expedition  into  the  Cherokee  Nation.  His  scheme  was 
approved,  and  an  express  sent  to  Colonel  Elijah  Clarke 
of  Georgia,  on  the  5th  of  September,  requesting  the  aid 
of  a  part  of  his  regiment,  and  fixed  on  the  16th  at  Long 
Creek,  as  the  time  and  place  of  rendezvous  with  30  days' 
provision.  This  was  agreed  to,  and  General  Pickens, 
with  316  men,  joined  Colonel  Clarke  accordingly,  who 
had  98,  including  10  volunteers  from  Richmond  County, 
making  in  the  whole  414,  including  officers. 

The  general  marched  on  the  morning  of  the  19th  in  a 
westerly  direction  for  the  Chattahoochie  River,  which  he 
reached  and  crossed  on  the  24th  at  Beaver  Shoal.  Pursuing 
their  course  on  a  small  Indian  trail,  they  met  two  Indians 
who  were  taken  prisoners.  From  these  they  learned  that 
there  were  several  Indian  towns  within  the  distance  of  ten 
or  twelve  miles,  and  from  thence  Colonel  Waters's  party 
was  about  twenty  miles.  The  general  thereupon  detached 
Colonel  Robert  Anderson  with  one  hundred  men,  guided 
by  one  of  the  Indian  prisoners,  to  destroy  the  villages  and 
towns  upon  the  river.  Colonel  White  was  ordered  down 
the  river  with  a  detachment  for  a  similar  purpose,  while 
General  Pickens  with  Colonel  Clarke  took  a  more  direct 
course  for  Colonel  Waters's  position,  the  destruction  of  which 
was  the  principal  object  of  the  expedition ;  but  Waters 
had  received  information  of  Pickens's  approach  just  in  time 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  655 

to  escape  with  his  party.  A  few  Indians  were  killed  and  a 
number  of  women  and  children  were  taken  prisoners.  An- 
derson and  White  joined  the  main  bod}'  in  the  afternoon, 
having  killed  eiglit  Indians  and  destroyed  a  number  of 
towns. 

General  Pickens  sent  out  some  of  his  prisoners  in  search 
of  the  chiefs,  offering  terms  with  assurances  that  no  more 
towns  would  be  destroyed  if  they  would  surrender  the 
white  people  among  them,  and  enter  into  a  treaty  of  peace. 
In  the  meantime  he  marched  from  one  town  to  another, 
procuring  supplies  of  provisions  and  forage  for  his  men. 
Several  of  the  chiefs  met  in  the  mountains  and  sent  one  of 
their  head  men,  called  the  Terrapin,  with  a  party  of  war- 
riors and  six  of  Waters's  men  prisoners,  promising  that 
every  exertion  should  be  made  to  bring  in  the  others.  On 
the  8th  of  October  Colonel  Clarke  marched  from  Selacoa 
with  one  hundred  men  in  pursuit  of  Waters  who  had  halted 
on  the  Estanala  River  about  sixty  miles  west  of  Long  Swamp  ; 
but  Waters,  hearing  of  his  advance,  retreated  through  the 
Creek  Nation  and  made  his  way  to  St.  Augustine.  On 
the  same  day  Captain  Maxwell's  company  marched  to 
Estanala  town  where  he  took  twenty-four  negroes,  the 
principal  part  of  whom  had  been  plundered  by  Waters's 
party  from  the  inhabitants  of  Georgia  and  Carolina,  a  num- 
ber of  horses,  and  a  quantity  of  pelfry  with  which  he 
returned  on  the  seventh  day. 

Finally  a  number  of  chiefs  came  in  and  proposed  to  Gen- 
eral Pickens  while  he  was  at  Selacoa  to  hold  a  treaty  at 
Long  Swamp  on  the  17th,  to  which  he  agreed.  On  the 
day  appointed  twelve  chiefs  and  two  hundred  warriors  ap- 
peared and  entered  into  temporary  articles  of  treaty,  which 
were  afterwards  to  be  confirmed  by  the  whole  nation  at 
such  time  and  place  as  the  governor  of  Georgia  should 
appoint. 


656  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

By  this  treaty  all  the  lands  claimed  by  the  Cherokees 
south  of  Savannah  River  and  east  of  the  Chattahoochee 
were  to  be  surrendered  to  the  State  of  Georgia  as  the  price 
of  peace.  The  Indian  trade  was  opened  upon  terms  not 
less  advantageous  to  the  Indians  than  that  which  had 
previously  been  carried  on  between  them  and  the  British 
government.  The  articles  being  signed  by  the  parties, 
General  Pickens  returned  to  his  former  position  of  Long 
Creek,  where  the  troops  were  discharged  on  the  22d  of 
October,  and  returned  to  their  homes  without  the  loss  of 
one  man. 

General  Pickens  carried  with  his  command  not  a  tent  or 
any  other  description  of  camp  equipage.  After  the  small 
portion  of  bread  which  they  could  carry  in  their  saddle- 
bags was  exhausted,  his  men  lived  upon  parched  corn, 
potatoes,  peas,  and  beef,  which  they  collected  in  the  Indian 
towns  ;  salt  they  had  none. 

Early  in  the  succeeding  year  the  governor  of  Georgia 
invited  the  Cherokee  chiefs  to  Augusta,  and  finally  con- 
cluded the  articles  of  treaty  which  had  been  temporarily 
entered  into  by  General  Pickens.^ 

All  the  blood  to  be  lost  in  South  Carolina  in  the  strug- 
gle for  American  independence  was  not  yet  shed,  but 
these  were  the  last  military  operations  of  any  consequence 
in  the  war. 

iMcCall's  Hist,  of  Ga.,  vol.  II,  408-414. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

1782 

The  British  administration  having  resolved  upon  aban- 
doning offensive  operations  in  America,  the  scheme  of 
evacuating  the  weaker  posts  in  the  United  States  was 
adopted.  Savannah,  which  had  been  the  first  Southern 
post  to  fall,  was  the  first  to  be  relieved.  It  was  evacuated 
on  the  11th  of  July.^  A  heavy  firing  off  the  bar  on  the 
morning  of  the  6th  of  September  announced  the  arrival  of 
Sir  Samuel  Hood  with  a  fleet  to  convoy  and  cover  the 
evacuation  of  Charlestown.  It  was  the  arrival  of  this  fleet 
which  recalled  Leslie's  foraging  expeditions  from  Wadboo 
and  Beaufort.  It  was  three  months,  however,  before  the 
evacuation  did  actually  take  place. 

During  the  possession  of  the  city  by  the  British,  a  num- 
ber of  merchants  had  come  from  England  and  established 
themselves  in  business.  These  were  now  in  a  most  unfor- 
tunate position.  They  had  entered  into  extensive  com- 
mercial engagements.  Those  of  their  debtors  who  were 
without  the  lines  were  not  subject  to  British  jurisdiction ; 
those  who  were  within  were  unable  to  pay.  Surrounded 
with  difficulties,  and  threatened  with  bankruptcy  should 
they  leave  the  State  with  the  British  troops,  they  applied 
to  General  Leslie  and  obtained  leave  to  negotiate  for  them- 
selves. A  deputation  of  the  body  waited  on  Governor 
Mathews  and  obtained  from  him  permission  to  reside  in 

1  Gordon's  Am.  War,  vol.  IV,  300-301  ;  Ramsay's  Ilevohition  in 
So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  3G9. 

VOL.  IV.  —  2u  657 


658  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

South  Carolina  for  eighteen  months  after  the  evacuation, 
with  the  right  to  dispose  of  their  stock  of  goods  on  hand, 
and  to  collect  the  debts  already  due  tliem,  —  an  indalo-ence 
which  was  extended  to  a  longer  term  by  the  legislature  at 
their  next  meeting,  before  information  was  received  that 
the  preliminary  articles  of  peace  had  been  signed.^ 

When  the  long-expected  evacuation  drew  near,  the  citi- 
zens of  the  State  were  apprehensive  that  the  British  army, 
on  its  departure,  would  carry  off  with  them  the  thousands 
of  negroes  who  were  within  their  lines.  To  prevent  this 
Governor  Mathews  wrote  to  General  Leslie,  on  the  17th  of 
August,  warning  him  "  that  if  the  property  of  the  citizens 
of  South  Carolina  was  carried  off  by  the  British  army,  he 
should  seize  on  the  debts  due  to  the  British  merchants  and 
to  the  confiscated  estates,  and  the  claims  on  those  estates 
by  marriage  settlements,  which  three  articles  were  not 
included  in  the  Confiscation  Act."  This  announcement 
operated  to  some  extent  as  a  check  on  this  plunder,  and 
induced  General  Leslie  to  propose  a  negotiation  for  secur- 
ing the  property  of  both  parties.  This  was  agreed  to,  and 
Benjamin  Guerard  and  Edward  Rutledge  were  appointed 
commissioners  in  behalf  of  the  State,  and  Alexander  Wright 
and  James  Johnson  in  behalf  of  the  Royalists.  On  the  10th 
of  October  these  commissioners  agreed  to  the  following 
articles :  ^  — 

"  First,  that  all  the  slaves  of  the  citizens  of  Sonth  Carolina,  now  in 
the  power  of  the  honourable  Lieutenant  General  Leslie,  shall  be  re- 
stored to  their  former  owners,  as  far  as  is  practicable,  except  such 
slaves  as  may  have  rendered  themselves  particularly  obnoxious  on 
account  of  their  attachment  and  services  to  the  British  troops,  and 
such  as  had  specific  promises  of  freedom. 

1  Gordon's  Am.  War,  vol.  IV,  301  ;  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.^ 
vol.  II,  371-372. 

2  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  37G-378. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  659 

"  That  the  faith  of  the  State  is  hereby  solemnly  pledged,  that  none 
of  the  debts  due  to  British  merchants,  or  to  persons  who  have  been 
banished,  or  whose  estates  have  been  confiscated,  or  property  secured 
by  family  settlements  fairly  made  on  contracts  relative  thereto, 
shall  now,  or  at  any  time  hereafter,  be  arrested  or  withheld  by  the 
executive  authority  of  the  State  —  that  no  act  of  the  Legislature  shall 
hereafter  pass  for  confiscating  or  seizing  the  same  in  any  manner  what- 
ever, if  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  executive  to  prevent  it —  and  that  its 
whole  power  and  influence,  both  in  its  public  and  in  private  capacity, 
shall  at  all  times  be  exerted  for  that  purpose. 

"  That  the  same  power  shall  be  allowed  for  the  recovery  of  the  debts 
and  property,  hereby  protected  and  secured  by  the  parties  or  their 
representatives,  in  the  courts  of  justice,  or  otherwise,  as  citizens  of  the 
State  may  at  any  time  be  entitled  unto,  notwithstanding  any  act  of 
confiscation  or  banishment,  or  any  other  disability  whatever,  and 
that  this  same  may  be  remitted  to  whatever  part  of  the  world  they 
may  think  proper,  under  the  same,  and  no  other,  regulations  than 
the  citizens  of  the  State  may  be  subject  to. 

"  That  no  slaves  restored  to  their  former  owners,  by  virtue  of  this 
agreement,  shall  be  punished  by  authority  of  the  State  for  having 
left  their  masters,  and  attached  themselves  to  the  British  troops;  and 
it  will  be  particularly  recommended  to  their  respective  owners  to 
forgive  them  for  the  same. 

"  That  no  violence  or  insult  shall  be  offered  to  the  persons  or  houses 
of  the  families  of  such  persons  as  are  obliged  to  leave  the  State  for 
their  adherence  to  the  British  government,  when  the  American  army 
shall  take  possession  of  the  town,  or  at  any  time  afterwards,  as  far  as 
it  is  in  the  power  of  those  in  authority  to  prevent  it. 

"  That  Edward  Blake  and  Roger  Parker  Saunders,  Esquires,  be 
permitted  to  reside  in  Charleston,  on  their  parole  of  honor  to  assist 
in  the  execution  of  the  first  article  of  this  compact." 

In  consequence  of  this  agreement  Governor  Mathews 
commissioned  Thomas  Ferguson  and  Thomas  Waring  to 
reside  at  Accabee  near  the  British  lines  to  receive  and 
forward  the  negroes  which  should  be  recovered  by  Messrs. 
Blake  and  Sanders  in  the  city.  The  owners  of  the  ne- 
groes were  to  attend  at  Accabee  to  receive  them,  and 
Governor  Mathews  earnestly  entreated  that  the  negroes  so 


660  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

restored  should  be  forgiven  for  having  deserted  their  mas- 
ters and  joined  the  British.  Great  were  the  expectations  of 
the  citizens  that  under  this  arrangement  they  would  soon 
obtain  possession  of  their  property.  But  in  their  hopes 
they  were  disappointed. 

Messrs.  Blake  and  Sanders,  having  waited  on  General 
Leslie,  were  permitted  to  examine  the  fleet  bound  to  St. 
Augustine,  but  were  not  suffered  to  examine  any  vessel  that 
wore  the  king's  pennant.  Instead  of  an  examination,  the 
word  of  the  commanding  officer  to  restore  all  the  slaves 
that  were  on  board  in  violation  of  the  compact  was  offered 
as  an  equivalent.  In  their  search  of  the  fleet  bound  to 
St.  Augustine,  they  found  and  claimed  136  negroes ;  but 
when  they  attended  to  receive  them  no  more  than  73 
were  landed  for  delivery.  Upon  their  demand  for  the 
remainder,  they  were  informed  by  General  Leslie  that  no 
negroes  would  be  delivered  till  three  soldiers  that  had 
been  taken  by  a  party  of  General  Greene's  army  were 
restored. 

General  Leslie's  adjutant  general,  on  the  18th  of  October, 
addressed  a  communication  to  Messrs.  Blake  and  Sanders, 
complaining  that  a  large  patrol  from  General  Greene's 
army,  two  days  before,  had  come  down  so  near  his  advanced 
post  on  Charlestown  Neck  as  to  carry  off  three  soldiers  who 
were  a  little  way  in  the  front,  while  Mr.  Ferguson  and 
another  person  were  at  Accabee  to  receive  the  negroes, 
without  any  other  sanction  but  that  of  the  agreement ;  and 
declaring  that,  if  a  line  of  conduct  so  different  from  theirs 
was  adopted,  it  must  put  an  end  to  the  pacific  intention  of 
General  Leslie  in  regard  to  the  Province  during  the  short 
time  he  was  to  remain  in  it.  He  demanded  the  return  of 
the  soldiers,  and  announced  that  until  this  was  done  he 
was  under  the  necessity  of  putting  a  stop  to  the  further 
completion  of  the  agreement. 


IN  THE   KE VOLUTION  661 

This  letter  was  forwarded  to  Governor  Mathews,  who 
replied  the  next  day  to  General  Leslie,  in  person,  that  he 
had  not  been  without  apprehensions  of  an  intended  evasion 
of  the  compact,  but  on  receipt  of  this  letter  no  room 
was  left  for  doubt,  which  obliged  him,  without  giving  fur- 
ther trouble  to  those  engaged  in  the  business  and  intro- 
ducing further  altercation,  to  declare  that  he  looked  on 
the  agreement  as  dissolved  and  had  accordingly  ordered 
his  commissioners  to  quit  the  British  lines. ^ 

The  distinguishing  fault  of  Governor  Mathews,  it  was 
said,  was  a  hasty  temper,  and  it  was  thought  that  a  little 
more  temporizing  in  managing  this  affair  would  either 
have  secured  a  number  of  slaves  or  put  the  enemy  so  much 
in  fault  as  to  furnish  strong  ground  for  demanding  an 
indemnity  of  their  government  after  peace.  The  saving 
clause,  '-^except  such  as  had  rendered  themselves  obnoxious 
hy  services  reiidered  the  enemy,  and  such  as  had  been  ex- 
pressly pro7nised  their  freedom,^^  would  itself,  however,  have 
furnished  abundant  ground  for  carrying  off  a  large  number. 
Scarcely  an  officer  or  his  wife  or  mistress  was  without  one 
or  more  of  the  planters'  slaves,  to  whom  no  doubt  they 
would  all  have  promised  freedom  ;  and  there  were  many 
who,  if  they  had  not  been  actually  in  arms,  had  been  em- 
ployed in  various  services  that  relieved  the  British  soldiers. 
Thus  five  hundred  were  shipped  to  New  York  to  be  used 
as  pioneers,  and  Colonel  Moncrief  is  said  to  have  had  eight 
hundred  employed  in  all  the  numerous  duties  of  the  engi- 
neer and  ordinance  departments,  and  to  have  taken  them 
all  off  with  him  when  he  sailed.  It  is  also  confidently 
asserted  of  this  officer  that,  after  shipping  them  as  king's 
men,  he  sold  them  in  the  West  Indies  as  his  own  property. 
It  is  highly  probable,  as  it  has  been  observed,  that  after 
entering  into  this  treaty  General  Leslie  found  it  exceed- 
1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  379-380. 


662  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

ingly  difficult  to  carry  it  into  execution.  Opposition  must 
have  met  him  in  every  quarter,  not  only  from  avarice  and 
party  interest,  but  from  the  great  number  of  amorous  con- 
nections well  known  to  have  existed.  And  finally,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  multiplied  evasions  of  his  authority 
took  place  to  effect  the  shipping  of  innumerable  individuals. 
An  instance  is  cited  of  the  body  of  a  suffocated  slave, 
headed  up  in  a  rice  barrel,  drifting  into  the  market  dock 
the  day  that  the  fleet  crossed  the  bar.^ 

Upon  Colonel  Laurens's  death  the  confidential  services 
upon  the  lines  were  committed  to  Count  Kosciuszko,  who 
was  scarcely  less  eager  for  enterprises  than  Laurens  him- 
self had  been.  The  successful  issue  of  one  of  these 
brought  General  Greene  in  conflict  with  the  governor 
and  council  of  the  State. 

After  the  enemy  had  retired  under  the  guns  of  their 
redoubts,  they  were  obliged  daily  to  drive  their  cattle  to 
pasture  on  Charlestown  Neck  under  a  strong  guard.  A 
number  of  their  cavalry  horses  also,  particularly  those  of 
the  Loyalists,  were  placed  on  James  Island,  where  they 
were  secured  at  night  near  the  fort  and  by  day  driven  out 
to  pasture.  Kosciuszko  attempted  to  seize  and  secure 
both  of  these,  and  though  he  found  the  cattle  too  well 
guarded  for  his  small  force,  succeeded  in  bringing  off  a 
number  of  very  fine  horses.  These  horses  were  committed 
to  the  quartermaster-general  to  be  sold,  and  after  making 
a  compensation  to  the  soldiers,  the  balance  of  the  proceeds 
was  directed  to  be  placed  in  the  public  coffers.  But  it 
happened  that  among  the  captured  horses  were  a  number 
that  were  claimed  by  citizens  as  horses  that  had  been 
plundered  from  them  by  the  enemy.  The  governor  was 
instructed   by   the  council   to  demand  that  these   horses 

1  Ramsay's  Bevolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  884;  Moultrie's  Memoirs, 
vol.  II,  351  ;  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  369. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  663 

should  be  restored  to  the  owners  on  a  salvage  of  one 
fourth,  the  rate,  it  will  be  recollected,  established  by  Gen- 
eral Sumter  when  endeavoring  to  reorganize  the  military 
force  of  the  State  while  it  was  without  a  government. 
This  General  Greene  refused  to  do,  claiming  the  horses 
for  Congress.  A  very  warm  and,  it  is  said,  learned  dis- 
cussion followed,  turning  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  right 
of  postlimiiiium  in  which  it  was  claimed  that  General 
Greene  displayed  a  perfect  acquaintance  with  the  best 
civilians.^  If  so  well  acquainted  with  the  civil  law  upon 
the  subject,  it  is  a  pity  that,  in  a  matter  of  so  much  deli- 
cacy, for  the  sake  of  a  few  dollars,  he  should  have  insisted 
upon  the  strict  letter  of  a  technical  rule,  against  the 
spirit  and.  reason  of  the  rule  itself,  and  against  the  opinion 
of  so  eminent  a  lawyer  and  statesman  as  Colonel  Charles 
Cotesworth  Pinckney. 

The  right  of  postliminium  is  defined  by  Vattel  to  be 
that  in  virtue  of  which  persons  and  things  taken  by  an 
enemy  are  restored  to  their  former  state  on  coming  again 
into  the  power  of  the  nation  to  which  they  belonged. ^ 
It  is  a  right  recognized  b}^  the  laws  of  nations,  and  con- 
tributes essentially  to  mitigate  the  calamities  of  war. 
When,  therefore,  property  taken  by  the  enemy  is  either 
recaptured  or  rescued  from  him  by  the  fellow-subjects  or 
allies  of  the  original  owner,  it  does  not  become  the 
property  of  the  recaptor  or  rescuer,  as  if  it  had  been  a 
new  prize,  but  it  is  restored  to  the  original  owner  by 
right  of  postliminium  upon  certain  terms.^  Naturally,  says 
Vattel,  every  kind  of  property  might  be  recovered  by  the 
right  oi  postliminium^  and  there  is  no  intrinsic  reason  why 
movables  should  be  excepted  in  this  case,  provided  they 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  344. 

2  Vattel,  B.  Ill,  ch.  XIV,  §  204. 

8  Kent's  Commentaries,  vol.  I    (12th  ed.),  109. 


664  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

can  be  certainly  recognized  and  identified.  Accordingly 
the  ancients,  on  recovering  such  things,  frequently  re- 
stored them  to  their  former  owners.  But  the  difficulty  of 
recognizing  things  of  this  nature,  and  the  endless  dis- 
putes which  would  arise  from  the  prosecution  of  the 
owners'  claims  to  them,  have  been  deemed  motives  of 
sufficient  weight  for  the  general  establishment  of  a  contrary 
practice.  Movables,  therefore,  says  Chancellor  Kent,  are 
not  entitled  by  the  strict  rules  of  the  laws  of  nations  to 
the  full  benefit  of  the  postliminy^  unless  retaken  from  the 
enemy  promptly  after  capture ;  the  original  owner  then 
neither  finds  a  difficulty  in  recognizing  his  property  nor 
is  presumed  to  have  relinquished  it. 

It  was  upon  this  technical  exception  to  a  general  rule, 
the  reason  of  which  did  not  apply  in  this  case,  that  Gen- 
eral Greene  chose  to  stand,  and  to  withhold  the  return  of 
property  the  ownership  of  which  was  admitted.  It  was 
peculiarly  unfortunate,  too,  that  the  dispute  should  have 
arisen  about  this  particular  class  of  property.  As  has 
appeared  in  the  course  of  this  history,  the  people  of  South 
Carolina,  like  those  in  Virginia,  were  devoted  to  their 
horses,  and  prided  themselves  upon  their  racers  and  riding 
animals.  Wills  are  still  on  record  in  Charlestown  whereby 
slaves  were  given  their  freedom  for  having  saved  their 
masters'  horses  from  capture  by  the  enemy. ^  And  unfortu- 
nately, it  had  happened  that  several  collisions  had  already 
occurred  in  regard  to  the  taking  of  horses  in  each  of  tliese 
States.  The  impressment  of  blooded  stock  in  Virginia 
for  the  purpose  ostensibly  of  public  use,  but,  as  was 
charged,  for  the  gratification  of  officers,  had  led  to  serious 
difficulties  in  that  State. ^  Colonel  Lee's  desire  to  appro- 
priate the  best  of  the  horses  taken  by  Marion  had  led  to 

1  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  under  the  Boy.  Gov.  (McCrady),  624,  525. 

2  Jolinson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  p.  41. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  665 

the  tender  of  the  latter's  resignation ;  and  one  of  the  rea- 
sons for  which  Sumter  had  tendered  his  was  because,  by 
the  terms  of  Maxwell's  surrender  of  Fort  Granby,  Lee  had 
allowed  that  officer  to  march  out  with  his  men  mounted 
on  horses  stolen  from  Sumter's  people.  The  corrupt 
practice  by  which  the  officers  of  the  Continental  cavalry 
had  appropriated  the  best  horses,  and  were  in  the  habit 
of  trading  in  them,  had  recently  come  out  in  the  case  of 
Captain  Gunn,  in  which  Colonel  White  of  the  Third  Regi- 
ment, justifying  himself  for  having  in  some  measure 
sanctioned  the  practice  by  exchanging  one  of  his  own  for 
a  public  horse  ridden  by  a  cavalry  officer,  had  declared  in 
a  letter,  "  I  believe  I  am  the  only  officer  in  the  cavalry, 
from  Colonel  Moylan  to  the  youngest  cornet,  that  does 
not  possess  at  this  time  from  one  to  three  public  horses."  ^ 
The  taking  of  the  horses  and  forcing  their  sale  under  such 
circumstances  was  regarded  by  the  citizens  with  great 
resentment. 

It  was  a  serious  question,  it  was  claimed,  how  far  the 
army  of  the  United  States,  under  the  confederation,  when 
operating  within  a  State,  was  bound  by  the  State  laws  as 
to  the  loss  or  acquirement  of  property  in  war.  "  It  was," 
says  Johnson,  ''obviously  a  struggle  between  State  and 
United  States  powers ;  and  probably  the  first  party  ques- 
tion smacking  of  federalism  and  republicanism  ever  agitated 
in  South  Carolina;  but  fortunately  no  collision  had  yet 
occurred  on  the  subject  of  impressment.  General  Greene 
convened  a  numerous  council  of  war  to  whom  he  referred 
the  subject ;  and  it  stands  recorded  that  an  eminent  char- 
acter of  the  State,  then  a  colonel,^  and  then  and  now  not 
less  esteemed  for  profound  law  knowledge  than  for  every 
quality  that  can  render  man  amiable  and  estimable,  stood 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  326. 

2  Colonel  C.  C.  Pinckney. 


66Q  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

alone  in  support  of  State  rights  —  no  small  ground  of 
claim  (we  respectfull}^  suggest)  to  be  the  acknowledged 
protosire  of  South  Carolina  republicanism.  Habitual  def- 
erence 1  would  incline  us  to  side  with  the  minority ;  but 
we  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  only  difficulty  lay  in  the 
ill-defined  tenor  of  most  of  the  grants  of  power  under  the 
old  confederation.  The  general  power  of  conducting  war 
would  seem  to  have  vested  in  Congress  the  right  to 
legislate  on  captures ;  whether  they  had  legislated  with  a 
view  to  postliminy  cases,"  says  Johnson,  "is  what  we  are 
not  able  to  decide.  It  is  probable  they  had  not."  ^  They 
certainly  had  not.  General  Greene  made  no  claim  to  the 
protection  of  any  such  legislation,  but  rested  on  the  civil 
—  the  international  —  law  in  which  he  was  so  well  read  — 
as  we  are  told. 

The  governor's  council  on  this  occasion  appear  to  have 
"  assumed  a  very  positive  tone,  but  the  representative  and 
delegate  of  congressional  power  would  make  but  one  con- 
cession; he  permitted  those  who  claimed  their  horses  to 
receive  them  on  stipulation  according  to  the  practice  of 
prize  courts,  and  referred  the  subject  to  Congress."  ^ 

It  is  not  amiss  to  observe  that,  as  there  were  no  South 
Carolina  Continental  troops  in  the  service  under  Greene, 
except  those  recently  raised,  as  we  have  seen.  General 
Pinckney,  the  only  member  of  this  council  of  war  to 
whom  the  commander  referred  this  delicate  question,  was 
probably  the  only  Carolinian,  and  the  only  lawyer,  upon 
the  board.  Certain  it  is,  that,  if  not  the  only  lawyer, 
he  was  the  only  lawyer  of  reputation  upon  it.  This 
was  doubtless  one  of  the  occasions  of  the  bitter  feeling 
which  already  had  begun  to  be  entertained  in  the  State, 

1  Judge  Johnson,  the  author,  who  thus  writes,  studied  law  under  Gen- 
eral I^inckney. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  345.  ^  /^j,^. 


IN   THE    REVOLUTION  667 

not  only  against  its  commander,  but  against  the  whole 
Continental  army  within  its  borders. 

Another  enterprise  of  Kosciuszko's,  of  the  same  kind, 
was  to  occasion  the  last  bloodshed  of  the  Revolution. 
Just  a  month  before  the  evacuation,  Kosciuszko  suggested 
to  Captain  Wilmot  and  Lieutenant  Moore  of  the  ]Maryland 
line  to  surprise  a  party  of  woodcutters  from  Fort  John- 
son, on  James  Island.  So  much  was  the  accuracy  of  the 
information  doubted,  that  many  believed  that  the  negro 
who  gave  it  had  been  sent  expressly  to  decoy  the  Ameii- 
cans.  Certain  it  is  the  party  found  the  enemy  prepared, 
and  received  so  deadly  a  fire  that  Wilmot  and  several 
others  fell  lifeless,  while  Moore  with  others  remained  on 
the  field,  covered  with  wounds.  Kosciuszko,  although  his 
weapon  was  shattered  in  his  hand  and  his  coat  pierced  by 
four  balls,  escaped  unhurt.  A  British  dragoon  was  killed 
by  Mr.  William  Fuller,  a  very  young  and  gallant  volunteer 
who  had  joined  the  expedition,  while  in  the  act  of  cutting 
Kosciuszko  down.  The  British  buried  Wilmot  with  the 
honors  of  war,  and  showed  the  greatest  attention  to 
Moore,  who  was  removed  to  Charlestown  to  receive  the 
best  surgical  attention,  lie  died  under  his  wounds  a  few 
days  after  the  evacuation.^ 

It  is  related  of  Marion  that  about  this  time  Kosciuszko 
wrote  to  him,  calling  his  attention  to  a  watering  party  at 
Lempriere's  Point,  so  situated  as  to  afford  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  attacking  it  with  success.  To  which  Marion 
replied  that  he  had  not  overlooked  the  situation  of  the 
British  at  that  spot,  but  he  viewed  the  war  in  Carolina  as 
over,  and  as  the  enemy  were  preparing  to  go  away  he  had 
sent  a  party  to  protect  them  from  being  annoyed  by  his 
own  men;  that  his  fellow-citizens  had  already  shed  blood 

'  Ham.s;\y's  lievolution  in  So.  Ca.,  vol.  II,  375  ;  Johnson's  Life  of 
Greene,  vol.  II,  oIj;  Garden's  ^Ai('c<:?o^es,  91. 


668  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

enough  in  the  cause  of  freedom,  and  that  he  would  not 
spill  another  drop  of  it  now  that  it  was  unnecessary,  —  no, 
not  for  the  highest  honors  that  could  be  conferred  upon 
him.^ 

Such  was  the  difference  between  the  patriot  and  the 
soldier  of  fortune. 

General  Moultrie,  who  had  been  a  prisoner  of  war  since 
the  fall  of  Charlestown,  was,  on  the  19th  of  February, 
1782,  exchanged  for  General  Burgoyne,  and  had  arrived 
at  Waccamaw  in  June,  where  he  learned  that  Greene's 
army  lay  inactive  at  Ashley  Ferry.  He  remained  at 
Wiuyaw  till  late  in  September,  when  he  paid  a  visit  to 
General  Greene.     He  thus  describes  his  journey  :  — 

"  It  was  the  most  dull,  melancholy,  dreary  ride  that  any  one  could 
possibly  take,  of  about  one  hundred  miles  through  the  woods  of  that 
country,  which  I  had  been  accustomed  to  see  abound  with  live-stock 
and  wild  fowl  of  every  kind,  was  now  destitute  of  all.  It  had  been 
so  completely  checquered  by  the  different  parties  that  no  one  part  of 
it  had  been  left  unexplored ;  consequently,  not  the  vestiges  of  horses, 
cattle,  hogs,  or  deer,  etc.,  were  to  be  found.  The  squirrels  and  birds 
of  every  kind  w^ere  totally  destroyed.  The  dragoons  told  me  that  on 
their  scouts  no  living  creature  was  to  be  seen  except  now  and  then  a 
few  camp  scavengers,'^  picking  the  bones  of  some  unfortunate  fellows 
who  had  been  shot  or  cut  down  and  left  in  the  woods  above  ground. 
In  my  visit  to  General  Greene's  camp,  as  there  was  some  danger  from 
the  enemy,  I  made  a  circuitous  route  to  General  Marion's  camp, 
then  on  Santee  River,  to  get  an  escort,  which  he  gave  me,  of  twenty 
infantry  and  twenty  cavalry ;  these,  with  the  volunteers  that  attended 
me,  made  us  pretty  strong.  On  my  way  from  General  Marion's  to 
General  Greene's  camp  my  plantation  was  in  the  direct  road,  where  I 
called,  and  stayed  all  night.  On  my  entering  the  place,  as  soon  as  the 
negroes  discovered  that  I  was  of  the  party,  there  was  immediately  a 
general  alarm  and  an  outcry  through  the  plantation  that,  '  Massa  was 
come  !  Massa  was  come  ! '  and  they  were  running  from  every  part  with 
great  joy  to  see  me.     I  stood  in  the  piazza  to  receive  them.     They 

1  James's  Life  of  Marion,  Appendix,  8. 

2  Turkey  buzzards. 


IN   THE   KE VOLUTION  669 

gazed  at  me  with  astonishment,  and  every  one  came  and  took  me  by 
the  hand,  saying, '  God  bless  you,  Massa !  I'm  glad  to  see  you,  Massa ! ' 
and  every  now  and  then  some  one  or  other  would  come  out  with  a 
'Kyi'  and  the  old  Africans  joined  in  a  war-song  in  their  own  language 
of  '  Welcome  the  war  home.'  It  was  an  affecting  meeting  between 
the  slaves  and  the  master.  The  tears  stole  from  my  eyes  and  ran 
down  my  cheeks.  A  number  of  gentlemen  that  were  with  me  could 
not  help  being  affected  at  the  scene.  Many  are  still  alive,  and 
remember  the  circumstances.  I  then  possessed  about  two  hundred 
slaves,  and  not  one  of  them  left  me  during  the  war,  although  they 
had  had  great  offers ;  nay,  some  were  carried  down  to  work  on  the 
British  lines,  yet  they  always  contrived  to  make  their  escape  and 
return  home.  My  plantation  I  found  to  be  a  desolate  place,  —  stock 
of  every  kind  taken  off,  the  furniture  carried  away,  and  my  estate 
had  been  under  sequestration.  The  next  day  we  arrived  at  General 
Greene's  camp.  On  our  near  approach,  the  air  was  so  affected  with 
the  stench  of  the  camp  that  we  could  scarcely  bear  the  smell ;  which 
shows  the  necessity  of  moving  camp  often  in  summer  in  these  hot 
climates.  General  Greene's  expecting  the  evacuation  to  take  place 
every  week  from  the  month  of  August  was  the  reason  he  remained 
so  long  on  the  same  ground."  ^ 

The  army  had  moved  in  July  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Bacon's  bridge,  down  the  Ashley  River,  to  Ashley  Hall, 
about  twelve  miles  from  Charlestown.  The  position  af- 
forded good  spring  water,  and  a  high  and  dry  situation, 
and  was  a  comparatively  healthy  one,  that  and  the 
adjoining  plantation  of  Middleton  Place  being  inhabited 
by  the  families  of  the  wealthy  owners  during  the  whole 
year.  Great  pains  were  taken  to  preserve  the  health  of  the 
troops,  and  it  was  obviously  better  at  this  place  than  the 
former.  But  even  here  great  care  was  required  to  preserve 
health  during  the  fall,  and  it  was  impossible  to  enforce  the 
precautions  necessary  in  a  discontented  and  inactive  army. 
General  Greene  deemed  it  necessary,  however,  to  remain 
in  this  position  during  the  autumn  months,  and  even  he 
did  not  escape  an  attack  of  fever.  Many  of  the  officers 
1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  354,  357. 


670  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH    CAROLINA 

suffered  in  the  same  way.  To  the  honor  of  General  Leslie 
it  is  to  be  stated  that,  as  the  war  was  now  practically 
over,  as  far  as  in  his  power,  he  relieved  the  unhappy 
situation  of  his  opponents.  Many  of  the  American  officers 
were  permitted  to  retire,  under  safe  conducts,  for  their 
health,  to  the  salubrious  ocean  air,  a  courteous  indulgence 
which  was  granted  to  the  wife  of  General  Greene,  who 
had  joined  him  upon  the  first  appearance  of  approaching 
peace. 

But  the  condition  of  the  army  at  this  time  was  truly 
deplorable,  half  naked,  badly  fed,  never  supplied  with  salt 
food,  but  uniformly  only  with  rice,  to  which  they  w^ere 
unaccustomed,  and  fresh  beef,  the  latter  of  an  inferior 
quality,  with  a  very  moderate  quantity  of  salt.  Other 
diseases  attacked  them  than  those  incidental  to  the  climate. 
To  add  to  their  discomforts,  dysentery  began  to  make  dread- 
ful havoc  among  them.  To  this  disease  many  fell  victims, 
and  to  the  real  suffering  and  loss  which  it  occasioned  was 
added  that  depression  of  spirits  which  generally  affects  an 
army  attacked  by  it,  an  effect  not  a  little  aggravated  by  the 
state  of  listless  inactivity  to  which  the  main  army  was  sub- 
jected. The  deaths  became  alarmingly  frequent.  Scarcely 
an  officer,  it  is  believed,  was  entirely  free  from  sickness, 
and  the  report  of  the  inspector,  when  he  mustered  the  men 
a  short  time  afterwards,  presented  a  dreadful  return  of  the 
mortality  that  had  prevailed.^ 

General  Leslie  had  pressed  his  preparations  for  evacuat- 
ing the  town  with  energy  and  despatch,  but  so  much  was 
to  be  done  that,  although  the  evacuation  was  officially  com- 
menced on  the  7th  of  August  as  a  measure  soon  to  be 
adopted,  and  the  fleet  to  carry  his  army  had  arrived  on  the 
6th  of  September,  it  was  not  until  the  14th  of  December 
that  it  actually  took  place.  In  the  meanwhile  the  dis- 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  348,  354. 


IK   THE   REVOLUTION  671 

tresses  resulting  from  his  confined  situation  had  been 
greatly  relieved  by  his  wise  measures.  13y  giving  permis- 
sion to  the  Loyalists  to  return  and  make  their  peace  with 
their  countrymen,  General  Leslie  had  relieved  himself  of 
great  numbers  ;  even  General  Cuningham  had  availed  him- 
self of  this  license.  Some,  who  carried  with  them  a  great 
number  of  plundered  slaves,  had  been  furnished  with  trans- 
ports to  take  them  to  St.  Augustine ;  and  finally,  after  he 
had  advanced  far  in  levelling  the  recently  reerected  works 
of  the  town  and  Fort  Johnson,  he  ordered  all  who  were 
well  affected  to  the  American  cause  to  quit  the  town  in 
twenty-four  hours,  under  penalty  of  being  considered  spies. 
This  measure,  whilst  it  disembarrassed  him  of  a  number 
of  useless  mouths  and  suspected  friends,  was  ingeniously 
calculated  to  give  pretexts  to  many  for  casting  themselves 
upon  the  mercy  of  their  country,  who  had  not  availed 
themselves  of  the  governor's  proclamation  or  had  been 
excepted  from  its  benefits. 

Having  nearly  completed  his  preparations  for  sailing. 
General  Leslie  opened  a  communication  with  General 
Greene  upon  the  subject  of  his  peaceable  departure.  As 
there  were  many  persons  in  his  army  whose  hearts  were 
swelling  with  revenge,  and  from  whom  he  apprehended 
some  attempts  to  fire  the  town,  his  conduct  was  not  only 
prudent,  but  magnanimous ;  and  as  no  possible  advantage 
could  be  taken  of  him,  but  by  an  attack  upon  liis  rear  guard, 
an  injury  that  could  be  amply  revenged  on  the  town  from 
his  shipping,  an  agreement  was  entered  into  that  the 
Americans  should  take  possession  as  the  enemy's  rear  guard 
retired,  that  no  attempt  should  be  made  upon  the  latter, 
and  no  injury  done  the  city  either  before  or  after  their 
departure.  1 

General  Wayne  was  accordingly  ordered,  on  the  13th  of 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol  II,  366. 


672  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

December,  to  cross  Ashley  River  at  what  is  now  known  as 
Bee's  Ferry,  with  a  corps  consisting  of  three  hundred  light 
infantr}^,  under  the  command  of  Major  Hamilton,  eighty 
of  Lee's  cavalry,  and  twenty  artillery,  with  two  six- 
pounders,  and  to  move  down  towards  the  British  lines, 
which  were  near  Colonel  Shubrick's,  the  present  Belvidere 
Farm,^  north  of  Magnolia  Cemetery,  which  consisted  of 
three  redoubts.  There  General  Leslie  sent  him  word 
that  he  would  leave  the  advanced  works  at  the  firing  of  the 
morning  gun  the  next  day ;  at  which  time  it  was  arranged 
that  General  Wayne  should  move  on  slowly  and  take  pos- 
session ;  and  from  thence  to  follow  the  British  into  the 
town,  keeping  at  a  respectful  distance,  about  two  hundred 
yards.  This  plan  of  movement  was  carried  out.  At  the 
appointed  time  the  British  abandoned  the  redoubts,  and 
took  up  the  line  of  march  down  what  is  now  the  King 
Street  road,  —  then  the  only  road  into  the  city,  —  and  after 
passing  through  the  town  gates  filed  off  to  Gadsden's 
wharf,  at  the  foot  of  what  is  now  Calhoun  Street.  The 
movements  of  the  two  armies  were  conducted  with  great 
order  and  regularity,  but  were  necessarily  very  slow,  as 
time  had  to  be  allowed  for  the  British  troops  to  embark  as 
they  reached  the  water ;  so  that  now  and  then  the  British 
called  to  General  Wajme  that  he  was  too  fast  upon  them, 
which  occasioned  him  to  halt.  It  thus  occupied  about 
four  hours  to  make  the  march  of  three  miles ;  and  it  was 
about  eleven  o'clock  a.m.  when  the  iVmerican  troops,  march- 
ing into  the  town,  took  post  at  the  State-House  at  the 
corner  of  Meeting  and  Broad  streets. 

At  three  o'clock  P.M.  General  Greene  conducted  Governor 
Mathews  and  the  council,  with  some  other  citizens,  into 
the  town.     They  marched  in  the  following  order :  an  ad- 
vance of  an  officer  and  thirty  men  of  Lee's  dragoons,  then 
1  Now  the  property  of  the  Country  Club  of  Charleston. 


IN  THE   KEVOLUTION  673 

followed  the  governor  and  General  Greene,  then  Generals 
Moultrie  and  Gist,  then  the  council,  citizens,  and  officers  in 
all  about  fifty,  a  body  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  cav- 
alry brought  up  the  rear.  The  party  halted  in  Broad 
Street,  opposite  where  the  Charleston  Library  now  stands ; 
there  they  alighted,  and  the  cavalry  were  dismissed  to 
their  quarters. 

It  was,  says  Moultrie,  whose  account  of  the  reentry  of  the 
American  troops  we  have  followed,  a  grand  and  pleasing 
sight  to  see  the  enemy's  fleet  (upwards  of  three  hundred  sail) 
lying  at  anchor  from  Fort  Johnson  to  Five-fathom  Hole, 
in  a  curved  line,  and  what  made  it  more  agreeable,  they 
were  ready  to  depart  from  the  port.  The  great  joy  that 
was  felt  on  this  day  by  the  citizens  and  soldiers  was  in- 
expressible. The  widows  and  orphans,  the  aged  men,  and 
others  who  from  their  particular  situations  were  obliged 
to  remain  in  the  town,  many  of  them  cooped  up  in  one 
room  of  their  own  elegant  houses  for  upwards  of  two  years, 
whilst  the  other  parts  were  occupied  by  British  officers, 
not  a  few  of  whom  were  rude  and  uncivil,  were  now  re- 
leased from  mortifying  situations  which  must  have  been 
truly  distressing.  "  I  can  never  forget,"  writes  the  old 
hero  of  Fort  Moultrie,  "  the  happy  day  when  we  marched 
into  Charlestown  with  the  American  troops  ;  it  was  a  proud 
day  to  me,  and  I  felt  myself  much  elated  at  seeing  the  bal- 
conies, the  doors,  and  windows  crowded  with  patriotic  fair, 
the  aged  citizens,  and  others  congratulating  us  on  our  return 
home,  saying,  '  God  bless  you,  gentlemen  !  You  are  wel- 
come home,  gentlemen  ! '  Both  citizens  and  soldiers  shed 
mutual  tears  of  joy.  It  was  an  ample  reward  for  the  tri- 
umphal soldier,  after  all  the  hazards  and  fatigues  of  war 
which  he  had  gone  through,  to  be  the  instrument  of  releas- 
ing  his   friends   and   fellow-citizens  from   captivity,  and 

VOL.  IV.  —  2x 


674 


HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 


restoring  them  to  their  liberties  and  possession  of  their  city 
and  country  again."  ^ 

The  embarkation,  which  was  not  only  of  the  army  but 
of  many  of  the  Loyalists  and  their  slaves,  had  begun  the 
day  before.  It  was  necessarily  a  slow  and  tedious  business, 
for  nine  thousand  civilians  and  slaves,  besides  the  British 
soldiery,  were  crowded  into  the  fleet.  The  following  figures 
of  the  exodus  are  preserved  among  the  manuscripts  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society :  ^  — 


To  WHAT  Place 

IVJEN 

Women 

ClIILDKEN 

Blacks 

Total 

Jamaica  .... 

600 

300 

378 

2613 

3891 

East  Florida 

630 

306 

337 

1653 

2926 

West  Florida 

166 

57 

119 

558 

900 

England .     . 

137 

74 

63 

56 

330 

Halifax   .     . 

163 

133 

121 

53 

470 

New  York    . 

100 

40 

50 

50 

240 

St.  Lucia      . 

20 

... 

... 

350 

370 

1816 

910 

1068 

5333 

9127 

To  these  are  to  be  added  the  negro  slaves  which  the 
British  had  attached  to  their  army,  eight  hundred  of  whom 
were  said  to  have  been  carried  off  by  Colonel  Moncrief,^ 


1  Moultrie's  Memoirs,  vol.  II,  358-361.  ' '  The  British  evacuated  Charles- 
ton. The  American  regular  army  entered  it  in  triumph  ;  "but  our  poor 
partisans  were  thought  too  irregular,  too  ragged  of  raiment  to  share  this 
triumph  !  They  were  not  too  ragged  to  fight,  only  too  ragged  for  show. 
It  was  a  most  ungenerous  and  ungrateful  exclusion  from  the  scene  of  the 
very  men  to  whom  the  best  part  of  the  grand  result  was  due  !  They  were 
disbanded  here  and  there  in  swamp  and  thicket,  wherever  the  moment 
found  them  ;  disbanded  without  pay  or  praise,  naked,  starving,  having  the 
■world  before  them,  but  losing  from  that  moment  all  their  customary  guides 
but  Providence  !  "  —  BusselVs  Magazine,  vol.  IV,  128. 

2  Year  Book,  City  of  Charleston,  1883  (Courtenay),  416. 
8  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  369. 


IN   THE   EEVOLUTION  675 

making  a  loss  of  population  to  tlie  State  by  this  exodus  of 
probably  ten  thousand. 

One  of  the  most  striking  incidents  of  the  evacuation 
was  the  astonishing  number  of  deserters  left  behind. 
The  author  of  the  Life  of  Grreene  states  that  he  had  in  his 
possession  the  names  of  350  who  reported  themselves  dur- 
ing the  year  1782,  but  this  was  whilst  it  was  necessary  to 
surrender  themselves  to  the  army.  After  the  evacua- 
tion, as  such  report  was  unnecessary,  none  was  made. 
Hundreds  made  their  appearance  from  cellars  and  chimneys 
as  soon  as  it  could  be  done  with  safety.  Not  a  Hessian 
went  back  but  under  compulsion ;  and  even  of  the  other 
troops  few  appeared  disposed  to  adhere  to  their  colors  but 
those  who  had  previously  deserted  from  the  American 
standard  or  enlisted  in  the  country .^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  367. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

1782-83 

The  British  fleet  had  scarcely  crossed  the  Charlestown 
Bar,  and  disappeared  at  sea,  before  the  most  serious  con- 
troversies arose  between  General  Greene,  as  commander  of 
the  Continental  forces,  and  the  State  authorities. 

Upon  the  evacuation  of  the  city  the  greater  part  of  tlie 
American  army,  now  composed  entirely  of  Continental 
troops,  the  most  of  whom  had  come  only  after  all  the 
fighting  in  South  Carolina  was  over,  and  whose  only 
achievement  in  the  State  had  been  a  mutiny,  were  now 
marched  down  to  James  Island  and  stationed  there  for  the 
winter.  The  Virginia  cavalry,  to  the  number  of  two 
hundred  under  Major  Swan,  were  posted  near  Combahee,  as 
well  to  be  at  hand  for  the  protection  of  Georgia  from  the 
British  force  at  St.  Augustine  as  for  the  convenience  of 
forage.  The  Legion  was  posted  in  the  vicinity  of  George- 
town. 

The  army  was  now  well  clad;  but  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  clothing  had  been  obtained,  coming  to 
light  immediately  after  the  evacuation,  were  such  as  to 
bring  General  Greene's  conduct  under  suspicion  of  personal 
corruption.  Unfortunately,  too,  it  was  in  the  full  tide  of 
the  excitement  caused  by  this  affair  that  the  general  most 
unwisely,  and,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  indecorously  under- 
took to  address  the  governor  and  legislature  of  the  State, 
not  only  as  to  their  duty  in  supplying  his  troops,  about 

676 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  677 

wliicli  he  went  so  far  as  to  threaten  them  with  his  army, 
but  also  in  regard  to  another  matter  of  the  policy  of  the 
State,  with  which  he  had  no  concern. 

While  the  Southern  army  was  retreating  from  Ninety 
Six,  Major  Robert  Forsyth,  who,  it  will  be  recollected. 
General  Greene,  upon  his  coming  to  the  South,  had  had 
appointed  deputy  commissary  for  the  Southern  Depart- 
ment, relieved  Colonel  Davie  from  the  duties  of  commissary 
upon  General  Greene's  immediate  staff,  duties  which  Davie, 
says  Johnson,  had  performed  with  unusual  applause,^  but 
whose  faithful  service,  it  may  here  be  observed,  Greene's 
biographer  is  forced  to  admit,  had  not  been  able  to  shield 
that  officer  from  his  commander's  expression  of  dissatisf ac- 
tion. ^  It  was  through  this  Major  Forsyth  that  General 
Greene  was  now  involved  in  the  unfortunate  transaction 
with  which  his  name  must  ever  be  associated. 

Some  few  weeks  before  the  evacuation  of  Charlestown, 
one  John  Banks,  who  had  been  in  the  business  of  contract- 
ing for  the  supplies  of  the  army,  happened  to  be  in 
Georgetown,  and  hearing  there  of  the  action  of  the 
governor  and  council  in  granting  leave  to  the  British 
merchants  to  remain  after  the  evacuation,  and  of  the  de- 
plorable condition,  not  only  of  the  army,  but  of  the 
citizens,  both  for  themselves  and  their  negroes,  for  the 
want  of  clothing,  saw  at  once  the  immense  profit  to  be 
made  if  he  could  secure  the  purchase  of  the  necessary 
materials  in  the  hands  of  the  British  merchants  before  the 
evacuation,  and  thus  monopolize,  or,  to  use  the  language 
of  the  times,  engross  the  articles  of  clothing  of  which  there 
was  such  great  need.  In  pursuance  of  his  scheme,  he 
obtained  a  flag  from  Colonel  Lushington,  who  commanded 
the  militia  garrison  at  Georgetown,  and  under  it  proceeded 
to  Charlestown.  There  he  made  his  bargains  with  the 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  IT,  361.  2  lud.,  248. 


678  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA 

merchants  to  the  amount  of  £23,000  sterling,  but  to  carry- 
out  such  a  large  transaction  he  needed  financial  assistance. 
To  obtain  this  he  secured  another  flag,  one  from  General 
Leslie  to  the  American  camp.  Arriving  there,  he  was 
introduced  to  General  Greene  through  Major  Forsyth, 
with  whom  he  had  had  commercial  transactions  at 
Fredericksburg  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  while  pursuing 
his  duties  in  Virginia  as  commissary  of  purchases,  and 
who,  with  Major  Burnet,  another  officer  of  General 
Greene's  family,  he  interested  in  the  transaction  to  the 
amount  of  one-fourth  each. 

Thus  presented  to  General  Greene,  Banks  represented 
himself  as  an  agent  from  the  merchants  in  Charlestown, 
and  submitted  to  him  an  offer  from  them,  to  take  his 
bills  on  Mr.  Morris,  the  financial  agent  of  the  United 
States,  at  par  for  the  value  of  the  clothing,  provided  the 
sum  of  1200  guineas  could  be  obtained  as  a  cash  payment. 
General  Greene  accepted  the  offer.  But  how  was  the 
1200  guineas  to  be  raised? 

It  happened  that  Mr.  George  Abbott  Hall  was  at  the 
time  in  South  Carolina  as  the  receiver  in  behalf  of  the 
United  States  to  receive  from  the  State  the  quota  of 
the  18,000,000,  the  amount  of  the  Continental  estimate  for 
the  year  1782  apportioned  to  the  State,  to  meet  which  the 
Jacksonborough  General  Assembly  had  passed  the  act  for 
furnishing  supplies  to  the  amount  of  1373,598;  and  also 
to  receive  the  five  per  cent  duty  proposed  to  be  levied  on 
imported  and  prize  goods.  To  Mr.  Hall,  General  Greene 
applied  for  an  advance  of  the  1200  guineas.  Mr.  Hall 
objected  that  the  money  had  been  confided  to  him  by 
Mr.  Morris  to  take  up  his  notes  and  those  of  his  bank. 
He  admitted,  however,  *'that  he  was  authorized  to  let 
General  Greene  have  small  sums  upon  the  most  pressing 
occasions.^''    General  Greene  conceived  that  a  pressing  occa- 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  679 

sion  had  arrived,  and  notwithstanding  Mr.  Hall  declared 
that  he  should  be  bankrupted  by  the  demand,  insisted 
upon  and  obtained  1200  guineas,  which  he  at  once  turned 
over  to  Banks,  and  gave  him  also  bills  to  the  amount  of 
X8000  drawn  on  Mr.  Morris.  As  soon  as  Banks  received 
the  bills,  he  forwarded  them  through  the  agency  of  Major 
Forsyth  by  the  government  express,  to  his  partner,  Hunter, 
in  Fredericksburg,  Virginia.  It  happened  that  Captain 
Sheiton,  of  the  wagon  master's  department,  to  whose  care 
the  package  was  committed,  overlooked  Major  Forsyth 
while  that  officer  was  making  up  the  package,  and,  hav- 
ing his  suspicions  aroused  as  to  the  transaction,  commu- 
nicated them  to  General  Scott  of  Virginia,  through  whose 
hands  it  was  to  pass.^  Upon  this,  General  Scott  broke 
open  the  package  upon  receiving  it,  and  in  it  found  a 
letter  from  Forsyth,  dated  the  7th  of  November,  and 
another  from  Banks,  giving  a  full  account  of  the  transac- 
tion and  sending  the  bills  as  the  first  fruits  of  it.  Major 
Burnet  was  mentioned  as  one  of  the  copartners,  with  a 
particular  request  that  his  interest  should  be  kept  secret. 
The  next  day  another  communication  to  Hunter  arrived 
by  the  line  of  expresses,  the  only  mail  conveyance  then 
existing.  This  was  also  franked  by  Major  Forsyth,  who, 
as  commissary  of  purchases,  had  the  right  to  transmit 
despatches  by  this  conveyance.  General  Scott  opened 
this  letter  also.  It  proved  to  be  from  Banks,  and  from  it 
it  appeared  that  Banks,  during  his  residence  in  Charles- 
town,  had  been  dealing  largely  in  the  corrupt  practices 
which  a  state  of  war  never  fails  to  introduce  or  develop 
in   commercial   communities.     Unfortunately,  there  were 

1  General  Charles  Scott  of  Virginia,  who,  it  may  be  recollected,  was 
present  at  the  siege  of  Charlestown  in  1780,  and  was  taken  prisoner  upon 
the  fall  of  the  town.  Hist,  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80 
(McCrady),  472,  509. 


680  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

intimations  in  these  letters,  implicating  not  only  Majors 
Forsyth  and  Burnet,  but  General  Greene  himself. 
General  Scott,  thinking  that  he  had  made  an  important 
discovery,  immediately  communicated  the  intercepted 
letters  to  Governor  Harrison  and  the  council  in  Vir- 
ginia.^ 

The  purpose  of  the  governor  and  council  in  allowing 
the  British  merchants  to  remain  in  Charlestown  after  the 
evacuation  had  thus  been  frustrated,  to  a  great  extent 
at  least.  A  great  mercantile  firm,  composed  in  part  of 
officers  of  the  commander-in-chief's  family,  with  capital 
drawn  from  the  public  coffers,  had  thus  obtained  a  monoply 
of  the  clothing  of  which  the  people  stood  so  much  in  need. 
The  exact  details  of  the  transaction  were  not  yet  known, 
but  by  some  means,  probably  through  General  Scott  and 
Captain  Shelton,  the  matter  became  public  in  Virginia, 
where  General  Greene  at  the  time  was  very  unpopular, 
and  from  Virginia  the  most  injurious  rumors  had  reached 
South  Carolina. 

Under  the  contract  with  Banks,  General  Wayne  de- 
clared that  the  army  was  then  better  clothed  than  he  had 
ever  seen  American  troops ;  ^  but  in  the  matter  of  subsist- 
ence they  were  still  in  as  great  difficulty  as  ever.  Con- 
gress and  Mr.  Morris  had  cast  their  support  upon  the 
Southern  States  of  Virginia,  North  and  South  Carolina, 
and  Georgia.  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  would,  and 
Georgia  could,  do  nothing.  The  army  was  in  South  Caro- 
lina, and  must  therefore  live  upon  her  resources.  The 
people  of  the  State  became  indignant  that  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  Southern  army  was  thus  thrown  exclusively 
upon  them,  when  it  was  known  how  much  they  had  al- 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  358-364 ;  The  So.  Ca.  Weekly  Ga- 
zette, February  15,  1783. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  360. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  681 

ready  contributed,  and  how  much  more  they  had  endured 
and  suffered  in  the  common  cause.^ 

By  the  Constitution  of  1778,  then  in  force,  the  General 
Assembly  was  to  meet  on  the  first  Monday  in  January  in 
each  year,  but  it  was  not  until  the  24th  of  that  month, 
1783,  that  a  quorum  was  ready  this  year  for  business. 
When  it  met,  notwithstanding  the  state  of  popular  excite- 
ment at  the  time,  Governor  Mathews  opened  its  pro- 
ceedings with  a  message,  not  only  devoid  of  the  slightest 
intimation  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  army,  but  containing 
the  kindest  and  most  flattering  references  to  its  com- 
mander. And  to  these  sentiments  of  his  Excellency  both 
the  Senate  and  House  responded  in  their  addresses  in 
the  most  cordial  manner. ^  But  these  kindly  oiScial  ex- 
pressions but  thinly  veiled  the  mutual  discontent  between 
the  army  and  the  people.  On  the  10th  of  January,  General 
Greene  had  been  notified  that  impressments  would  no 
longer  be  allowed;  and  impressments  had  indeed  failed  to 
supply  the  army  with  beef,  for  no  one  would  bring  their 
cattle  within  reach  of  the  impressing  officer.  In  more 
than  one  instance  beef  had  been  taken  by  force  from  the 
public  market  for  the  use  of  the  army.  An  attempt  was 
then  made  to  find  a  contractor.  But  it  was  in  vain  that 
letters  and  advertisements  had  been  circulated,  calling  for 
bids,  until  Banks  &  Company  again  came  forward ;  but 
they  would  not  undertake  the  contract  at  the  prescribed 
prices.     Colonel  Carrington,  in  charge  of  the  subsistence 

A  We  have  seen,  it  will  be  remembered,  that  South  Carolina  had 
overpaid  her  proportion  of  the  expenditures  of  the  w^ar,  in  the  sum 
of  $1,205,978,  exceeding  every  other  state  but  Massachusetts  in  the 
amount  of  her  contribution  to  the  common  cause,  and  very  nearly  equal- 
ling that  State  which  had  three  times  her  white  population.  This  she  had 
done  before  she  was  overrun  and  devastated  by  the  enemy.  Hist,  of 
So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution  177^-80  (McCrady),  303,  304. 

2  TU  So.  Ca.  Weekly  Gazette,  February  15,  1783. 


682  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  the  army,  appreciating  the  delicacy  of  the  situation  in 
dealing  with  the  firm,  now  the  subject  of  so  much  suspi- 
cion, took  the  precaution  of  communicating  the  terms 
they  offered  to  Hugh  Rutledge,  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  with  the  request  that  he  would  lay  the 
subject  before  the  House  and  request  their  advice  on  any 
means  that  could  be  adopted  to  obtain  another  contractor 
and  better  terms.  Mr.  Rutledge  replied  that  he  had  laid 
the  letter  before  the  House,  that  the  terms  of  Banks  & 
Company  were  thought  too  high,  but  as  no  others  had 
been  offered,  and  the  pressing  necessities  called  for  imme- 
diate relief,  it  was  thought  needless  to  keep  open  the  con- 
tract any  longer.  Upon  this  Colonel  Carrington  closed 
with  Banks.  And  Banks  now  had  not  only  the  contract 
for  clothing,  but  for  feeding  the  army  as  well,  and  that 
upon  his  own  terms. 

General  Scott,  as  we  have  said,  upon  ascertaining  the 
character  of  the  letters  of  Banks  &  Company,  had  trans- 
mitted them  to  the  governor  and  council  of  Virginia.  It 
Avas  at  this  time,  on  the  1st  of  February,  that  the  following 
official  letter  from  Governor  Harrison  and  his  council 
reached  General  Greene :  ^  — 

"  Virginia  in  Council,  December  24,  1782. 

"  Sir  :  —  The  inclosed  copies  of  letters  from  Mr.  John  Banks  and 
Major  Forsyth  discover  a  dangerous  partnership  entered  into  by 
those  gentlemen  with  others  to  carry  on  an  illicit  trade  within  the 
Southern  States  entirely  injurious  to  them,  and  contrary  to  the 
strongest  recommendations  of  Congress  and  the  good  faith  so  solemnly 
pledged  to  our  good  allies  the  French  that  I  look  at  it  as  a  duty  in- 
cumbent on  me  to  acquaint  you  with  the  particulars  in  order  that 
such  steps  may  be  taken,  as  well  to  prevent  the  scheme's  being 
carried  into  execution,  as  to  call  to  account  the  officers  of  your  army 
who  have  so  imprudently  entered  into  a  connexion  derogatory  to 
their  characters  as  officers  and  abusive  of  that  confidence  you  have 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  364. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  683 

been  pleased  to  place  in  them.  The  letters  will  so  fully  explain  the 
whole  transaction  that  I  need  not  trouble  you  with  any  comment  of 
mine,  further  than  to  observe  that  Mr.  Banks  has  endeavored  to 
involve  you  in  this  business,  by  hinting  a  desire  in  you  to  become  a 
partner;  and  that  he  had  liberties  granted  him  by  your  connivance 
that  could  not  be  obtained  by  any  other  person.  These  insinuations 
I  assure  you  Sir  have  made  no  impression  to  your  disadvantage 
either  with  me  or  any  other  member  of  my  council.  Your  character 
stands  in  too  exalted  a  point  of  view  with  us  to  be  aspersed  by  any 
thing  from  so  trifling  an  individual.  Yet  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  let 
him  feel  the  weight  of  your  resentment  for  his  presumption  lest  the 
uninformed  may  differ  with  us  in  this  sentiment.  You  will  see  that 
the  letters  are  public  here  and  by  what  means  they  became  so." 

The  arrival  of  this  communication  at  this  time  was  most 
unfortunate  for  General  Greene.  The  report  spread  far 
and  wide  that,  employing  the  funds  of  the  public,  he  had, 
through  the  agency  of  Banks,  opened  a  lucrative  commerce 
with  Charlestown,  and  in  a  short  time  it  was  superadded 
that  Mr.  Morris,  participating  in  the  iniquity,  had  given  him 
an  unlimited  right  of  drawing  in  order  to  furnish  a  capital 
for  speculation.!     j^  gQ  happened  also  that  the  paper  had 

1  Banks,  soon  after  obtaining  the  contract  to  supply  Greene's  army  with 
food  as  well  as  with  clothing,  speculating  in  other  directions,  became 
deeply  involved,  and  could  not  comply  with  his  contract,  whereupon  the 
merchants  proposed  that  if  General  Greene  would  guarantee  Banks's 
debts  they  would  furnish  the  latter  further  credit.  Greene  agreed  to 
this.  Banks  failed,  and  after  the  war  (i.e.  in  1784)  his  creditors  called 
upon  Greene  to  make  good  his  guarantee.  In  1785,  on  the  advice  of  his 
friends,  General  Greene  applied  to  the  Continental  Congress  for  relief ; 
but  before  action  was  taken  he  died  [Commanders  Series,  General  Greene 
(Greene),  207-298],  In  1791  his  widow  renewed  the  application  by 
petition  to  the  Second  Congress  under  the  Constitution.  There  her 
petition  was  met  and  opposed  by  General  Sumter,  then  a  member  of 
that  body,  not  on  the  ground  of  fraud  or  of  General  Greene's  connection 
with  Banks,  but  on  the  broader  ground  that  there  had  been  no  necessity 
of  such  action  on  the  part  of  General  Greene,  that  South  CaroHna  her- 
self, pressed  and  devastated  as  she  was,  would  have  yet  furnished  the 
necessary  supplies  had  a  proper  application  been  made  in  time  ;  and  of 
this  General  Sumter  was  in  a  position  to  speak  with  authority,  as  he  was 


684  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH   CAKOLINA 

come  just  at  the  time  when  the  General  Assembly  was 
about  to  go  into  the  election  for  another  governor,  under 
the  Constitution,  which  required  an  election  every  two 
years  and  rendered  the  incumbent  ineligible.  Governor 
Mathews,  from  his  previous  position  in  Congress  upon  the 
committees  at  General  Washington's  headquarters,  had 
had  much  experience  in  regard  to  the  wants  and  necessi- 
ties of  an  army,  and  of  the  ways  and  means  of  supplying 
them.  His  position  in  Congress  had  also  doubtless  ren- 
dered him  most  friendly  to  the  Continental  army  and  its 

on  a  committee  charged  with  providing  the  means  of  doing  so,  when,  as 
we  shall  see.  General  Greene  most  improperly  interfered  —  an  interfer- 
ence which  caused  the  abandonment  of  the  measure — and  that  large  grants 
had  been  made  by  the  States  of  Georgia,  North  and  South  Carolina,  which 
were  still  in  the  possession  of  the  general's  heirs.  He  recognized,  he  said, 
the  delicacy  of  his  position  owing  to  his  relations  with  General  Greene, 
and  would  not  suffer  past  injuries  to  warp  his  judgment,  but  acted  in  con- 
formity with  the  opinions  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  and  in  par- 
ticular of  the  district  which  he  had  the  honor  to  represent.  The  petition, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  supported,  among  others,  by  General  Wayne  and 
Colonel  Wadsworth,  Greene's  partner  in  the  firm  of  Barnabas  Deane  &  Co. 
who  was  then  his  executor  and  a  member  of  Congress.  After  the  fullest 
debate  the  petition  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  28  to  25.  (Abridgment  of 
Debates  of  Congress^  vol  I,  335-341.)  It  was,  however,  again  renewed 
the  next  year,  and  on  the  4th  of  April,  1792,  a  measure  for  the  relief  of 
Greene's  estate  in  one  case  was  passed  by  a  like  close  vote  of  29  ayes  to 
26  nays.  (Ibid.,  373.)  Four  years  after  another  bill  was  passed  for  the 
relief  of  the  estate  in  another  case  by  the  large  majority  of  56  yeas  to  26 
nays.  (Ibid.,  762.)  For  a  summary  of  the  case  as  presented  in  Congress 
pro  and  con  see  ibid.,  but  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  either  of  these 
measures  of  relief  would  have  been  passed  had  it  been  then  known  that 
General  Greene  had  in  1779-80  been  a  secret  partner  in  the  firm  of 
Barnabas,  Deane  &  Co.,  and  as  quartermaster-general  purchasing  sup- 
plies from  his  own  house,  for  such  knowledge  would  have  much  weakened 
the  argument  so  much  pressed  and  relied  upon,  that  it  was  impossible  to 
suppose  that  one  of  his  high  character  could  have  been  involved  in  such  a 
transaction.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  there  is  not 
a  vestige  of  evidence  that  the  partners  in  that  house  took  undue  advantage 
of  their  official  positions  to  extend  the  business  or  increase  the  profits  of 
the  firm.  (J.  Hammond  Trumbull,  LL.D.,  Magazine  of  Am.  History^ 
vol.  XII,  28.) 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  685 

officers.  Now  another  governor  was  to  be  chosen,  while 
popular  sentiment  ran  strongly  against  the  army  in  general 
and  its  commander  in  particular. 

On  the  4th  of  February,  1783,  the  legislature  pro- 
ceeded to  the  election  of  State  officers ;  whereupon  Benja- 
min Guerard  was  chosen  governor  and  Richard  Beresford 
lieutenant-governor.  The  constitution  rendering  the  privy 
councillors,  as  well  as  the  governor,  ineligible  to  reelection, 
new  members  of  that  body  had  also  to  be  elected;  and 
Peter  Bocquet,  Arnoldus  Vanderhorst,  Benjamin  Waring, 
Josiah  Smith,  Nicholas  Eveleigh,  William  Hasell  Gibbes, 
Jacob  Read,  and  Daniel  DeSaussure  were  chosen. 

The  names  of  those  hitherto  prominent,  either  in  the 
civil  or  military  line,  are  conspicuously  absent  in  this  list 
of  the  new  officers  of  the  State.  This  is  no  doubt,  in  part 
at  least,  accounted  for  by  the  constitutional  provision  for- 
bidding reelections.  The  absence  of  any  but  Low-Country 
men  in  the  Privy  Council  is  with  no  less  doubt  to  be 
attributed  to  the  necessity  of  having  in  the  council  resi- 
dents of  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  city  where 
the  governor  resided,  so  as  to  insure  a  quorum  upon  imme- 
diate pressing  occasions.  The  journals  of  the  legislature 
show  the  presence  in  the  body  of  all  the  old  leaders,  as 
well  from  the  Up- Country  as  from  the  Low-Country,  and 
their  active  concern  in  all  its  measures,  so  that  there  could 
scarcely  have  been  any  local  or  class  prejudice  controlling 
these  elections.  The  delegates  to  Congress  chosen  also 
disprove  the  idea  that  any  such  motives  controlled.  These 
were  Henry  Laurens,  John  Rutledge,  Ralph  Izard,  Jacob 
Read,  and  Thomas  Sumter.  Governor  Guerard  had  been 
one  of  those  confined  on  a  prison  ship  and  exiled  to  Phila- 
delphia, and  his  popularity  doubtless  arose  from  his  noble 
conduct  in  regard  to  his  fellow-prisoners  and  the  exiles 
to  St.  Augustine  who  were  transported  to  Philadelphia. 


686  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Many  of  these,  as  has  already  been  stated,  accustomed 
through  life  to  every  essential  comfort,  were  then  destitute 
of  common  necessaries,  and  not  a  few  actually  wanted 
bread.  Mr.  Guerard  was  possessed  of  an  extensive  property, 
and,  touched  by  the  sufferings  of  his  fellow-citizens,  he 
came  forward  and  offered  to  pledge  his  whole  estate  as  a 
security  to  raise  a  sum  to  be  exclusively  appropriated  to 
their  maintenance,  demanding  no  greater  share  for  himself 
than  that  which  should  be  allowed  to  every  other  individual. 
Carolina  estates,  then  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  were  not 
regarded  as  a  very  good  security,  and  his  generous  inten- 
tions proved  altogether  abortive ;  but  they  were  not  for- 
gotten by  his  fellow-exiles.  The  influence  of  the  St. 
Augustine  company  and  of  those  who  had  been  on  the 
prison  ships,  in  this  election  is  very  manifest.  Governor 
Guerard  had  been  on  the  prison  ship  Pack-IIorse.  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Beresford  and  Privy  Councillors  Josiah 
Smith,  William  Hasell  Gibbes,  Jacob  Read,  and  Daniel 
DeSaussure  had  all  belonged  to  the  St.  Augustine  party. 

A  measure  which  was  at  this  time  exciting  the  greatest 
interest  in  this  legislature  was  a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the 
act  of  the  year  before  allowing  Congress  to  levy  five  per 
cent  duties  on  imports  and  prizes.  Under  the  articles  of 
confederation  the  consent  of  every  one  of  the  thirteen 
States  was  necessary  to  any  amendment  of  them,  and  such 
an  amendment  was  necessary  to  allow  the  imposition  of 
this  tax  ;  and  as  Rhode  Island  refused  her  consent  to  this 
measure  it  stood  in  abeyance.  Congress,  having  no  resource 
except  persuasion,  was  about  to  send  a  delegation  to  that 
State  to  urge  its  consent,  when  intelligence  was  received 
that  Virginia  had  joined  Maryland  in  opposition  to  it,  and 
had  without  a  negative  in  her  Assembly  passed  an  act  to 
withdraw  her  assent.  The  reasons  recited  in  the  preamble 
to  the  Virginia  act  of  repeal  were  thus  stated :  "  The  per- 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  687 

mitting  any  power  other  than  the  General  Assembly  of 
this  commonwealth  to  levy  duties  or  taxes  upon  citizens 
of  this  State  within  the  same  is  injurious  to  its  sovereignty, 
may  prove  destructive  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the 
people,  and  so  far  as  Congress  may  exercise  the  same  is 
contravening  the  spirit  of  the  confederation."  ^  Following 
the  lead  of  Virginia,  a  bill  had  been  introduced  into  the 
legislature  of  South  Carolina,  reciting  that  the  body  at  its 
last  sitting,  desirous  of  strengthening  the  hands  of  the 
United  States,  had  passed  the  act  vesting  in  Congress  a 
power  to  levy  duties  of  five  per  centum  ad  valorem  on 
certain  goods  and  merchandise  imported  into  the  States, 
and  prizes  and  prize  goods  condemned  in  the  courts  of 
admiralty ;  that  the  State  of  Rhode  Island  had  refused  to 
vest  Congress  with  such  powers,  and  the  commonwealth  of 
Virginia  had  repealed  the  law  by  which  she  had  empowered 
Congress  to  impose  such  duties ;  that  it  was  repugnant  to 
the  commercial  interests  of  the  State  to  continue  the  act, 
and  enacting  its  repeal. 

At  the  same  time  the  Assembly  was  busy  considering 
measures  for  the  support  of  the  army  without  impress- 
ments. A  joint  committee  of  the  Senate  and  House  had 
been  appointed  to  consider  without  delay  some  speedy  and 
effectual  measure  to  prevent  the  present  method  of  col- 
lecting supplies  of  provisions  and  forage.  The  committee 
was  a  very  able  and  representative  one,  one  fully  compe- 
tent and  willing  to  do  justice  to  the  army.  Upon  it  were 
General  Moultrie,  General  Sumter,  General  Barnwell, 
Major  Bocquet,  and  Colonel  Vanderhorst.  General  Moultrie 
was  a  Continental  officer,  and  had  been  absent,  and  therefore 
entirely  removed  from  any  participation  in  the  differences 
between  General  Greene  and  General  Sumter.  None  of 
the  other  members  are  known  to  have  been  in  any  way 
1  Baucroft,  vol.  VI,  33,  34. 


688  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

embroiled  with  General  Greene  or  with  any  one  connected 
with  the  Continental  service. 

This  committee  reported,  on  the  14th  of  February,  that 
since  General  Greene  had  applied  for  assistance,  a  consider- 
able quantity  of  salt  beef  had  arrived  at  James  Island, 
which  they  conceived  might  be  a  sufficient  supply  till  the 
contractors  were  ready  to  commence  their  issues.  Should 
it  prove  otherwise,  they  recommended  that  warrants  be 
issued  to  impress  till  the  contractors  could  relieve  the  army, 
at  a  rate  not  exceeding  one-third  of  the  cattle  and  hogs 
each  person  might  be  entitled  to.  For  supplying  the  army 
with  forage,  they  recommended  that  the  governor  might 
be  empowered  to  appoint  forage  masters  in  such  places  as 
were  necessary  to  procure  and  deliver  forage  in  such  quan- 
tities for  such  horses  only,  however,  as  were  allowed  by 
the  regulations  of  Congress.^ 

It  was  while  the  legislature  was  thus  occupied,  devising 
a  measure  for  the  support  of  the  army  by  modified  impress- 
ments, that  General  Greene,  notwithstanding  his  own  per- 
sonal unpopularity,  and  the  equivocal  position  in  which  he 
was  placed  by  the  disclosure  of  the  Banks  correspondence, 
undertook  most  officiously  to  address  the  governor  and 
the  legislature  upon  the  measures  which  they  were  con- 
sidering, to  volunteer  his  opinions,  and  to  threaten  the 
governor  and  Assembly  with  the  anger  and  power  of  the 
army  if  they  did  not  comply  with  his  views  and  demands 
—  for  this  was  the  effect  of  his  communication,  however 
his  friends  and  admirers  have  attempted  to  explain  it  away. 

The  letter  addressed  to  the  governor — with  a  request 
that  it  be  laid  before  the  House  —  bears  date  the  8th  of 
March.  Its  terms,  says  Johnson,  were  perfectly  respectful 
and  decorous.  It  urged  the  great  necessities  of  Congress, 
the  little  to  be  apprehended  from  its  powers,  the  injustice 
1  Journal  of  the  House  of  liepresentatives. 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  689 

that  had  been  done  the  army,  its  mutinous  temper,  the 
withering  state  of  the  treasury,  and  the  imperious  duty  of 
enabling  the  general  government  to  fulfil  its  contracts. 
*'  I  confess,"  he  wrote,  "  I  am  one  of  those  who  think  our 
independence  can  only  prove  a  blessing  under  congressional 
influence."  "If  we  have  anything  to  apprehend,"  he 
continued,  "  it  is  that  the  members  of  Congress  will  sacri- 
fice the  general  interest  to  particular  interests  in  the  State 
to  which  they  belong ;  that  this  had  been  the  case,  and 
from  the  very  nature  and  constitution  of  that  body,  more 
was  to  be  dreaded  from  their  exercising  too  little,  than  too 
much  power."  Then,  warming  with  his  subject,  he  went 
on  to  observe :  — 

"  The  Financier  says  the  affairs  of  his  department  are  tottering  on 
the  brink  of  ruin ;  the  army  to  the  northward  are  in  the  highest  dis- 
content; and  the  same  is  to  be  expected  to  the  southward.  It  must 
be  confessed  the  soldiers  have  given  noble  proofs  of  virtue  and  patriot- 
ism under  every  species  of  distress  and  suffering.  But  this  has  been 
in  full  persuasion  that  justice  would  be  done  them  in  due  time.  The 
distresses  of  a  suffering  country  have  been  urged  with  success  to 
silence  their  present  demands ;  but  these  arguments  will  have  no 
weight  in  future  —  the  j)resent  repose  affords  a  prospect  of  permanent 
revenue.  The  eyes  of  the  army  are  turned  upon  the  States  in  full  ex- 
pectation of  it.  It  is  well  known  that  Congress  have  no  revenue ;  and 
the  measures  of  the  States  will  determine  the  conduct  of  the  army. 
I  need  not  tell  your  Excellency  that  the  moment  they  are  convinced 
they  have  nothing  to  hope  from  that  quarter  they  will  disband.  Nor 
will  they  be  satisfied  with  general  promises.  Nothing  short  of  per- 
manent and  certain  revenue  will  keep  them  subject  to  authority.  I 
think  it  my  duty  to  be  exj)licit  because  I  know  the  sentiments  of  the 
army.  Men  will  suffer  to  a  certain  degree ;  beyond  which  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  push  them.  My  influence  shall  never  be  wanting  to  promote 
the  tranquillity  of  government;  but  this  will  have  little  weight  when 
opposed  to  the  demands  of  an  injured  soldiery.  My  heart  is  warm 
with  good  wishes  for  this  country  ;  and  I  cannot  contemplate  future 
dangers  that  threaten  it  but  with  pain  and  anxiety.  I  am  sure  I 
shall  never  turn  my  back  when  troubles  overtake  her ;  but  it  is  much 
easier  to  prevent  evils  than  correct  them.     This  country  is  much  better 


690  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

calculated  for  revenue  than  for  loar.  It  may  lose  by  every  new  convul- 
sion, but  can  never  gain  where  liberty  is  not  the  object.  Your  wealth 
and  weakness  are  a  double  temptation  to  invite  an  invasion,  and  are 
the  strongest  arguments  for  uniting  in  the  closest  terms  your  interest 
with  others.  View  but  for  a  moment  the  vast  property  you  have  ex- 
posed, and  the  little  permanent  force  for  its  defence.  Again,  consider 
how  unhealthy  your  climate,  and  the  prejudices  prevailing  against  it. 
Should  you  add  new  difficulties  in  matters  of  finance,  the  war  continue, 
and  the  army  disband,  your  ruin  is  inevitable,"  etc.^ 

The  impatience  of  some  of  the  members,  it  is  said,  could 
scarcely  be  restrained  to  the  conclusion  of  this  letter. 
"  Are  we  to  be  dictated  to  by  a  Cromwell  ? "  said  some. 
"Can  we  not  manage  our  own  concerns?  Are  we  to  be 
terrified  by  threats  of  mutiny  and  violence  ?  Let  us  first 
be  paid  our  advances  and  then  let  Congress,  or  its  swords- 
men, require  this  duty!  If  we  are  to  pay  a  duty  we  can 
collect  it  ourselves,  without  having  the  placemen  of  Con- 
gress swarming  among  us  !  "  ^ 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  387-388. 

2  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  388.  In  a  letter  of  General  Greene 
to  Gouverneur  Morris,  April  23,  1783,  he  writes:  "The  subject  of  your 
letter  by  Major  Edwards  is  important  to  the  public,  and  interesting  to  the 
army.  The  disposition  of  the  latter  here  is  much  the  same  as  it  is  to  the 
northward,  but  I  am  afraid  of  both.  When  soldiers  advance  without 
authority  who  can  halt  them  ?  We  have  many  Clodiuses  and  Catilines 
in  America,  who  may  give  a  different  direction  to  this  business,  than  either 
you  or  I  expect.  It  is  a  critical  business  and  pregnant  with  dangerous 
consequences.  Congress  are  fast  declining,  and  their  power  and  authority 
must  expire,  without  more  effectual  support.  What  this  may  produce 
time  will  manifest.     I  have  done  my  duty  and  await  events. 

"  I  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Governor  of  the  State  on  the  subject  of  finance 
and  the  discontents  of  the  army.  It  gave  some  alarm  and  much  disgust. 
Continental  authority  and  the  financier  are  looked  upon  with  a  jealous 
eye  here.  No  people  were  ever  more  blind  to  their  true  interest.  Time 
and  further  experience  will  produce  what  reason  and  persuasion  cannot. 
I  send  you  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  the  Assembly  and  a  couple  of  papers 
with  some  strictures  thereon.  More  will  be  said  on  the  subject  hereafter. 
Plain  dealing  will  soon  become  necessary,"  etc.  Life  of  Gouverneur 
Morris  (Sparks),  vol.  I,  251. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  691 

The  proceeding  gave  great  alarm,  not  only  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  General  Assembly,  but  to  almost  every  man  in 
the  State.  With  less  excitement,  but  with  earnest  protest, 
others  took  up  the  matter  in  the  press,  and  seriously  and 
gravely  pointed  out  its  dangerous  tendency.  A  writer  over 
the  signature  of  "  Hampden,"  in  The  S.  Q.  Weekly  Gazette^ 
observing  that  the  general  in  his  communication  in  regard 
to  impressments  complains  of  the  inattention  of  the  Assem- 
bly to  the  wants  and  distresses  of  the  army,  and  indirectly 
informs  the  governor  that,  as  his  powers  of  impressing 
were  at  an  end,  some  mode  must  be  established  for  furnish- 
ing supplies,  declares  that  this  was  setting  up  an  authority 
unknown  to  our  government  and  superior  to  the  law  —  an 
attempt  affecting,  in  his  opinion,  the  very  vitals  of  the 
constitution.  The  fundamental  laws  of  human  nature, 
and  the  precepts  of  our  forefathers,  he  urged,  were  equally 
repugnant  to  the  claim.  "The  very  idea  of  property 
excludes  the  right  of  another  taking  any  thing  from  me 
without  my  consent,  otherwise  I  cannot  call  it  my  own. 
No  tenure  can  be  so  precarious  as  the  will  of  another. 
What  property  can  I  have  in  what  another  can  seize  at 
pleasure  ?  If  any  part  is  subject  to  the  discretionary 
power  of  others,  the  whole  may  be  so  likewise.  If  any 
part  of  my  estate  is  to  be  seized  at  any  time  without  the 
authority  of  the  legislature,  I  can  have  no  property. 

"  It  will,  I  suppose,"  he  continued,  "  be  objected,  is  South 
Carolina  then  to  enjoy  the  protection  of  the  confederacy 
and  to  contribute  nothing  to  its  support,  or  to  the  main- 
tenance of  that  army  which  had  afforded  her  citizens  safety 
and  security  and  placed  them  in  a  situation  of  peace  and 
quietness  ?  They,  her  people,  have  given  the  fullest 
answer  to  this  objection,  in  a  manner  not  to  be  contro- 
verted, through  a  series  of  years  and  by  the  most  explicit 
declarations.  Equally  in  words  and  actions,  in  the  most  un- 
equivocal nature,  they  have  demonstrated  their  love,  their 


692  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

ardor,  their  long  attachment  to  their  sister  States.  They 
have  always  been  ready,  not  only  to  contribute  to  the 
expenses  of  the  government,  but  likewise  to  the  wants  and 
necessities  of  others.  In  some  instances  they  have  far  ex- 
ceeded the  cold  line  of  prudence ;  with  cheerful  hearts  they 
gave  all  they  had  in  their  power  and  contended  with  them 
against  a  common  enemy  of  the  liberties  of  America.  The 
last  House  will  bear  witness  to  the  grateful  sense  they  had  of 
the  important  services  of  General  Greene,  and  their  acts 
give  the  fullest  proof  of  the  warm  affections  of  their  hearts 
to  the  army,  and  of  their  readiness  to  bear  their  share  of  the 
public  expense  and  burdens  when  in  a  situation  to  contrib- 
ute, but  the  whole  was  the  gift  of  freemen,  who  feel  that 
they  are,  and  know  that  they  have  a  right  to  be,  free." 

Then,  turning  to  the  other  subject,  "  Hampden  "  went  on 
to  say,  "  The  vesting  Congress  with  the  power  of  levying  an 
impost  of  five  per  centum,  which  the  last  House  had  no 
right  to  pass,  would  never  be  submitted  to  by  the  freemen 
of  America.  The  spirit  of  it  is  hostile  in  the  extreme  to 
liberty.  It  is  enacting  a  permanent  revenue  —  it  is  a  char- 
ter of  slavery.  I  deny  the  principle  of  the  act.  We 
bewilder  ourselves  with  fantastic  expressions  of  the  hap- 
piness of  America  under  congressional  influence.  The 
gentlest  natures  are  too  often  fond  of  power,  though  they 
do  not  abuse  it.  There  are  many  things  which  the  legis- 
lature cannot  do,  many  cases  in  which  it  has  no  power. 
They  cannot  create  themselves  perpetual.  They  are  merely 
a  delegated  power  from  the  people,  and  therefore  cannot 
surrender  their  share  of  power. 

"  I  will  never  admit,"  he  continued,  "  arbitrary  power  to 
be  lodged  in  any  man  or  body  of  men.  Many  things  are 
so  closely  woven  in  with  the  constitution,  like  the  trial  by 
jury,  that  they  cannot  be  separated  unless  the  body  of  the 
people  expressly  declare  otherwise,  after  a  full  considera- 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  693 

tion.    There  are  fundamental,  inalienable  rights,  landmarks 
of  the  constitution,  which  cannot  be  removed." 

It  is  said  that  nothing  could  exceed  the  astonishment 
of  General  Greene  that  his  interference  should  have  been 
received  as  it  was.  Upon  the  advice  of  friends  he  thought 
proper  the  next  day  to  address  another  letter  to  the  gov- 
ernor, exculpating  himself  from  the  charge  of  intending  to 
dictate  or  offend  ;  but  the  second  letter,  says  Johnson,  was 
not  calculated  to  allay  the  ferment.  Its  stubborn  vindica- 
tion and  cast  of  satire  were  not  adapted  to  make  its  apolo- 
gies acceptable.^  Upon  the  receipt  of  the  governor's 
message  laying  the  letter  of  March  8th  before  the  General 
Assembly,  that  body,  on  the  16th  of  March,  resolved  i^  — 

"  That  the  Legislature  of  the  State  has  strained  every  nerve  in 
endeavors  to  contribute  their  share  towards  the  continental  expense. 
That  in  the  beginning  of  last  year  when  the  country  was  desolated  by 
the  ravages  of  the  enemy  they  passed  a  law  for  the  payment  of  their 
full  quota  as  assessed  by  Congress  and  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  the  said  law  has  been  complied  with.  That  the  State  did  further 
furnish  a  considerable  supply  of  clothing  to  such  of  our  quota  of 
troops  as  was  raised,  which  expenditure  has  been  acknowledged  to 
have  been  received  as  part  of  their  quota  by  the  Financier.  That 
during  the  present  session  of  Assembly,  taxes  have  been  laid  upon 
this  country  which  must  be  burthensome  and  distressing  to  our  con- 
stituents with  a  view  to  comply  with  the  requirements  of  Congress. 
That  in  aid  of  the  taxes  above  mentioned,  a  considerable  portion  of 
confiscated  property  has  been  appropriated  to  the  supplies  of  the  cur- 
rent year.  That  in  addition  to  the  current  taxes  the  legislature  have 
voted  the  necessary  forage  for  the  cavalry  which  must  amount  to  a  very 
considerable  sum,  and  that  the  continental  forms  a  part  of  the  supplies. 

"Resolved  that  no  public  creditors  have  any  reasonable  cause  of 
complaint  against  the  State  for  want  of  raising  supplies  towards  the 
general  expense." 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  389. 

'^Journal  General  Assembly,  March  16,  1783.  The  letters  of  General 
Greene  are  not  recorded  in  the  journal,  and  the  text  of  the  first  only 
is  to  be  found,  and  to  be  found  only  in  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene  as  above. 


694  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

The  act  repealing  the  impost  duty  was  promptly  passed  ^ 
and  the  measures  looking  to  a  conditional  of  the  impress- 
ments abandoned.  It  was  not  long  before  another  cause 
of  offence  was  given.  Captain  Ker  of  the  British  army, 
the  friend,  as  we  have  seen,  of  General  Pickens,  and  who, 
it  was  said,  had  saved  the  life  of  Colonel  Washington  at 
the  Eutaws,  who  had  married  in  Charlestown,  and 
was  there  well  known  and  liked,  had  arrived  with  a  flag 
from  Governor  Tonyn  of  East  Florida  to  the  military  com- 
mander of  the  Southern  Department.^  By  him  it  was 
dul}^  received  and  acknowledged,  and  the  usual  forms  on 
such  occasions  regularly  observed.  But  Governor  Guerard 
construed  the  reception  of  an  embassy  from  the  civil  gov- 

1  Statutes  of  So.  Ca.  vol.  IV,  560,  March  10,  1783. 

2  It  is  unfortunate  that  we  do  not  know  the  subject  of  this  embassy  or 
flag  —  as  it  was  called.  Our  only  knowledge  of  it  is  derived  from  Judge 
Johnson's  work,  which  we  have  followed.  It  is  probable,  however,  that 
Captain  Ker's  flag  was  not  the  beginning  of  the  matter,  for  in  a  manuscript 
book  in  the  Secretary  of  State's  office  in  Columbia,  entitled  Index  to  Loose 
Documents,  we  find  an  entry,  "  Letter  of  Gov.  Tonyn  to  Gov.  Guerard 
demanding  the  person  of  Dr.  Wells  (M.  94,  1783).  Other  papers  relat- 
ing to  the  subject  (M.  11,  28,  29,  1784)."  And  again,  "Letter  to 
Gov.  Tonyn  of  East  Florida,  respecting  the  right  of  British  subjects  under 
the  provisional  treaty  (M.  11,  102,  1784).  .  .  .  Letter  to  Captain  Wyly 
agent  for  Gov.  Tonyn  (M.  103,  105,  1784)."  This  index  refers  to  Revo- 
lutionary documents  which  had  been  arranged  and  classified,  but  upon 
the  burning  of  the  State-House  by  the  Federal  army  in  1865,  were,  with 
other  manuscripts,  tumbled  out,  but  fortunately  not  destroyed,  and  now 
lie  in  a  confused  mass  in  a  room  in  the  present  State-House,  and  for  the 
rearrangement  and  classification  of  which  the  General  Assembly  has  just 
made  an  appropriation. 

There  is  also  this  entry  in  the  Journal  of  the  House,  August  13, 
1783:  "With  respect  to  the  correspondence  passed  between  Governor 
Guerard  and  the  governor  of  St.  Augustine  and  the  letter  of  Mr.  Read 
Head  to  Sir  Guy  Carleton  and  the  answer  relating  to  the  vesting  of  the 
property  of  citizens  of  the  State  carried  off  by  the  British  army.  The 
committee  are  of  opinion  that  copies  of  that  correspondence  be  forthwith 
transmitted  to  our  delegates  in  Congress  to  be  made  use  of  as  they  may 
prefer  in  order  to  make  reparation  for  the  property  so  taken  away." 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  695 

ernor  of  a  foreign  power,  by  the  military  commandant  of 
the  United  States  troops  accidentally  within  the  borders  of 
his  State,  without  reference  to  him  as  governor  and  com- 
mander-in-chief, as  an  indignity  to  the  State.  It  was  not, 
it  will  be  observed,  a  flag  from  a  military  officer  in  the  field, 
but  from  the  civil  governor  of  Florida.  The  articles  of 
confederation  had  certainly  not  clothed  the  United  States, 
still  less  its  military  officer,  with  the  power  of  sovereignty. 
Would  General  Washington  himself  have  received  an  em- 
bassy from  the  governor  of  Canada  without  referring  it  to 
Congress  ?  The  articles  of  confederation,  it  is  true,  provided 
that  no  State  without  the  consent  of  the  United  States  in 
Congress  assembled  should  send  any  embassy  to,  or  receive 
any  embassy  from,  any  king,  prince,  or  State.^  But  did 
that  authorize  an  officer  of  Congress,  the  military  comman- 
dant in  the  field,  to  do  so  ?  The  governor,  holding  that  it 
did  not,  issued  his  mandate  to  arrest  the  whole  party,  even 
the  crew  of  the  vessel  which  brought  the  British  officer. 
Captain  Ker  immediately  claimed  the  protection  of  General 
Greene.  To  himself  it  was  effectually  extended ;  but  the 
sheriff,  supported  by  the  governor,  insisted  on  detaining 
the  crew  as  prisoners  under  civil  process.  The  case  now 
became  one  of  extreme  delicacy,  which  General  Greene 
promptly  resolved  to  solve  by  force.  He  first,  however, 
called  a  council  of  war,  to  which  he  submitted  the  question 
whether  Captain  Ker  had  committed  any  violation  of  his 
flag?  This  point,  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
involved  in  the  controversy  with  the  governor,  the  council 
unanimously  decided  in  the  negative.  Troops  were  there- 
upon ordered  to  take  possession  of  Fort  Johnson  and  Wap- 
poo  Cut,  and  to  permit  no  one  to  pass  or  repass,  under  flags, 
without  permission  from  Greene's  headquarters.  Seeing 
that  General  Greene  had  taken  his  resolution,  and  knowing 

1  Article  6. 


696  HISTORY   OF   SOUTPI   CAROLINA 

that  he  would  adhere  to  them,  the  governor  and  council 
concluded  to  discharge  the  prisoners,  but  to  order  Ker  to 
leave  the  city  immediately  and  the  State  in  three  days. 
From  this  new  indignity,  as  he  conceived,  Ker  again 
appealed,  and  received  from  the  general  the  following 
reply :  ^  — 

"  The  order  sent  you  by  the  Governor  you  will  pay  no  regard  to. 
When  I  am  ready  to  discharge  your  flag  I  will  inform  you.  The 
time  and  manner  of  your  leaving  the  State  shall  be  made  as  agreeable 
as  possible.  I  confide  in  the  honor  of  the  flag  and  will  not  impose 
impossibilities.  I  shall  have  my  letter  ready  for  you  to  leave  this  the 
day  following  the  time  the  Governor  has  set  for  your  departure.  I  am 
exceedingly  unhappy  at  this  further  instance  of  indelicate  treatment 
you  have  met  with.  Instead  of  an  apology  for  the  injury  past,  you 
are  subjected  to  further  indignity ;  and  instead  of  being  dismissed 
with  the  politeness  due  to  a  flag,  you  are  ordered  out  of  the  State  like 
a  criminal  and  threatened  with  the  vengeance  of  government.  Noth- 
ing but  my  wishes  to  preserve  the  tranquillity  of  the  people  and  the 
respect  and  regard  I  have  for  their  peace  and  quiet  could  have  pre- 
vailed on  me  to  have  suffered  your  flag  to  be  treated  in  the  manner 
it  has  been.  And  although  I  do  not  think  this  a  sufficient  apology 
for  the  indignities  to  which  the  flag  has  been  subjected  yet  I  hope 
some  allowance  will  be  made  for  my  truly  delicate  situation.  I  know 
it  was  my  duty  to  afford  you  complete  protection  at  every  hazard,  and 
was  the  same  insult  to  be  offered  to  one  of  my  flags  I  must  be  silent 
after  what  has  happened  here.  However  I  shall  write  to  Governor 
Tonyn.  I  hope  you  will  relate  the  peculiarity  of  the  case  on  your 
arrival  with  the  same  liberality  you  speak  of  it  here,"  etc. 

In  his  communication  to  General  Lincoln  2  on  the  sub- 
ject, General  Greene  requested  the  latter  to  lay  it  immedi- 
ately before  Congress,  as  he  was  resolved  not  to  submit 
to  a  second  attack  on  the  United  States  authority,  "  a  prece- 
dent for  such  encroachments  shall  not  be  founded  upon 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  390. 

2  The  office  of  Secretary  of  War  had  been  established  in  1781,  and 
General  Benjamin  Lincoln,  who  had  formerly  commanded  the  Southern 
Department,  was  appointed  to  it. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  697 

his  failure  to  resist  them."  He  further  observed  that  "  this 
is  not  one  of  those  cases  where  the  right  was  doubtful 
or  public  safety  the  object,  but  appears  to  be  a  matter  of 
temper,  and  pursued  without  regard  to  either."  ^  Thus 
dogmatically,  with  sword  in  hand,  did  the  general  decide 
a  most  delicate  question,  in  which  the  right  was  neverthe- 
less most  doubtful.  His  detaining  the  flag  a  day  longer 
than  necessary  was  a  mere  matter  of  boastful  insult,  as  to 
which  he  well  knew  there  was  no  power  to  resent  or  resist. 
It  was  not  true  that  this  was  "not  one  of  those  cases 
where  the  right  was  doubtful."  The  position  he  assumed 
was,  on  the  contrary,  to  say  the  least,  most  questionable. 
Nor  had  he  any  right  to  call  in  question  the  sincerity  of 
Governer  Guerard's  motives  as  he  did,  when  he  assumed 
to  write  to  General  Lincoln  that  the  public  safety  was  not 
the  governor's  object,  but  that  his  course  was  a  matter  of 
temper.  Such  reflection  upon  the  governor's  conduct  was 
unbecoming  the  conduct  of  public  business  and  his  inter- 
course with  one  occupying  the  official  position  of  chief 
magistrate  of  a  State.  Whatever  may  or  may  not  have 
been  Governor  Guerard's  personal  motives,  —  and  there 
was  no  ground  to  impute  improper  ones,  —  the  question 
raised  was  one  which  no  governor  could  have  afforded  to 
ignore  in  the  uncertain  relations  of  the  State  to  the  Con- 
gress under  the  Confederation.  The  State  had  not  waived 
her  newly  acquired  sovereignty  by  the  articles  of  con- 
federation to  which  she  was  a  party.  She  was  still  the 
mistress  of  her  territory,  and  competent  to  say  who  should 
or  who  should  not  enter  upon  it;  and  this  she  had  done. 
She  had  forbidden  the  presence  of  any  one  upon  her  soil 
who  did  not  acknowledge  her  sovereign  authority.  By 
the  act  of  1778,  to  enforce  allegiance,  the  State  had  or- 
dained that  every  person  thereafter  coming  into  the  State, 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene^  vol.  II,  390. 


698  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

either  by  land  or  by  water,  should  repair  immediately  to 
the  nearest  justice  of  the  peace,  and  take  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance prescribed.^  No  subject  of  Great  Britain  had, 
therefore,  any  right  to  land  upon  her  coast,  and  any  such 
person  was  liable  to  arrest  if  he  did  so.  Nor  did  the  fact 
that  such  person  claimed  to  come  with  a  message  from  the 
governor  of  Florida  to  General  Greene  alter  the  case. 
General  Greene,  as  military  commander  in  the  South, 
would  undoubtedl}^  with  propriety,  have  received  a  flag 
of  truce  from  the  military  commandant  in  the  field,  against 
whom  he  was  operating.  But  it  will  be  observed  that  such 
was  not  the  case  in  point.  Captain  Ker,  though  himself 
a  British  army  officer,  did  not  come  from  the  commander 
of  the  British  military  forces,  but  came  bearing  a  message 
from  the  civil  governor  of  Florida.  The  communication, 
though  spoken  of  at  the  time  as  "a  flag,"  was  not  prop- 
erl}^  so  termed — a  flag  of  truce  is  technically  a  communi- 
cation from  an  officer  in  the  field  to  his  opponent,  upon 
some  matter  relating  to  the  conduct  of  the  war  in  which 
they  are  engaged.  The  communication  in  question  was 
one  of  a  civil  nature  from  the  civil  governor  of  that  prov- 
ince, and  as  such  Governor  Guerard  may  well  have  held 
that  General  Greene  had  no  right  to  receive  and  entertain 
it  upon  the  territory  of  his  State  —  and  that  in  violation 
of  a  fundamental  statute   thereof.^     The   peace   commis- 

1  Statutes  of  So.  Ca.,  vol.  I,  147. 

2  In  the  invasion  of  the  State,  1779,  and  the  investment  of  the  city  by 
General  Provost,  it  will  be  remembered  that  he  followed  this  rule,  and  as 
a  general  in  the  field  refused  to  receive  a  communication  from  Governor 
Rutledge,  and  declined  to  deal  with  any  but  the  military  commandant 
on  the  American  side.  \_Hist.  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution,  1773-80, 
(McCrady),  375.]  And  curiously  enough,  General  Greene  himself  had 
just  acted  upon  the  same  principle  when,  in  replying  to  General  Leslie  in 
regard  to  the  Confiscation  Act,  he  had  written  that  "he  had  the  honor  to 
command  the  forces  of  the  United  States  in  the  Southern  Department, 
hut  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  internal  police  of  any  State.'''' — Ante  683. 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  699 

sioners  from  England  had  not  addressed  themselves  to 
General  Washington,  the  Commander-in-chief  of  the  armies 
of  the  United  States ;  nor  had  Washington  undertaken  to 
receive  them.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  announced  by  flag  their 
arrival  to  Washington,  and  requested  a  passport  or  safe- 
conduct  for  their  secretary  through  his  lines,  as  bearer  of 
despatches  to  Congress ;  and  this  was  refused.  What 
would  have  been  thought  of  Washington  had  he  received 
and  entertained  the  commissioners  at  his  headquarters, 
regardless  of  the  Congress  and  Henry  Laurens,  its  presi- 
dent, because,  forsooth,  they  had  come  under  a  flag  ?  To 
Congress,  if  not  to  Governor  Guerard,  should  General 
Greene  have  referred  any  message  from  the  governor  of 
Florida.  Under  the  articles  of  confederation,  it  is  true,  it 
had  been  agreed  that  no  State  should,  without  the  consent 
of  the  United  States,  send  or  receive  any  embassy  from 
or  to  any  king,  prince,  or  foreign  State.  Whether  Gov- 
ernor Tonyn's  communications  came  within  this  prohibi- 
tion or  not  does  not  appear,  but  it  did  not  follow,  if 
they  did,  that  the  military  officer  of  Congress  in  command 
of  the  United  States  troops  in  any  particular  State  was 
authorized  to  carry  on  a  correspondence  with  a  British  civil 
magistrate  in  British  territory.  But  whether  this  reason- 
ing be  accepted  as  sound  or  not,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
there  was  much  force  in  the  view,  and  that  Governor 
Guerard,  acting  for  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  did  not 
transcend  the  duties  of  his  position  in  making  the  ques- 
tion ;  nor  do  we  think  that  General  Greene's  arbitrary 
manner  of  deciding  it  can  be  approved  as  wise,  generous, 
or  dignified.  And  so  it  was  that,  in  the  very  throes  of  her 
birth.  South  Carolina  had  trained  upon  her  the  guns  of  a 
Federal  army. 

The  army  and  its  commander,  says  Johnson,  had  now 
become  very  unpopular.     The  people  of  the  State  regarded 


700  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

them  as  little  else  than  the  last  enemy  to  be  got  rid  of. 
Mutual  discontents  were  exasperated  by  mutual  reproaches. 
The  former  considered  the  latter  as  ungrateful  proteges, 
who,  after  being  delivered  from  their  enemies,  would  leave 
their  protectors  to  starve;  the  latter  denied  their  obliga- 
tion to  maintain  their  so-called  deliverers,  urged  their 
liberal  advances  to  the  common  cause,  and  refel-red  them 
to  the  Congress.^ 

Thus  every  day  the  relation  between  the  army  and  the 
people  became  more  strained.  New  difficulties  were  daily 
presenting  themselves.  The  rumors  of  peace  checked  the 
sale  of  goods,  and  the  plundering  crews  of  small  craft  from 
St.  Augustine,  as  in  the  days  of  the  early  settlement  of  the 
province,  so  infested  the  coast  and  inlets  as  often  to  inter- 
cept the  provisioning  vessels,  there  being  no  other  means 
of  transportation.  If  this  supply  failed,  impressment  must 
follow,  and  the  general  knew  not  what  might  be  the  con- 
sequences. He  might  have  found  himself  cooped  up  in 
his  military  territory  of  James  Island,  or  forced  to  open 
his  way  from  it  with  the  bayonet.  The  smothered  feeling 
—  that  the  State  had  been  abandoned  by  Congress  in  the 
most  critical  periods,  a  feeling  shared  and  expressed  by 
Greene  himself;  that  she  had  been  saved  by  her  own  sons 
when  there  was  not  a  Continental  soldier  within  her 
borders;  that  when  her  sons  had  opened  the  way  for  the 
return  of  the  Continental  army,  that  body,  with  the 
concurrence  of  its  commander,  had  assumed  airs  of  superi- 
ority and  arrogance  galling  to  her  own  leaders ;  and  that 
now,  before  the  war  was  actually  over,  her  people  were  left 
to  support  those  who  bore  themselves  more  as  conquerors 
than  deliverers  —  had  now  broken  out.  Congress  and  its 
minions  became  most  unpopular.  The  people  believed 
their  newly  acquired  State  sovereignty  already  in  danger, 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  391. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  701 

and  rallied  around  it  with  ardor  and  enthusiasm.^  It  has 
been  well  observed  that,  happily  for  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  Great  Britain  desisted  from  the  contest 
exactly  at  that  point  of  time  when  she  ought  most  to  have 
pressed  it.  She  had  regained  the  mastery  of  the  ocean ; 
Charlestown  lay  exposed  without  a  piece  of  cannon  to 
defend  it ;  a  few  frigates  could  at  any  time  have  repossessed 
it ;  and  three  thousand  men  had  only  to  move  forward  to 
regain  the  control  in  the  three  Southern  States.^ 

On  the  16th  of  April,  the  South- Carolina  G-azette  and 
General  Advertiser  announced  the  arrival,  at  General 
Greene's  headquarters,  of  an  express  with  the  news  of  the 
confirmation  of  a  general  peace  having  been  concluded. 
Unhappily,  with  the  news  of  the  approach  of  peace  came 
also  a  confirmation  of  that  of  the  mutinous  condition  of  the 
Northern  army,  and  of  the  famous  Newburg  address,  calling 
upon  the  army  to  retain  their  swords  until  their  wrongs 
were  redressed  and  their  services  rewarded.  The  effect 
upon  the  temper  and  discipline  of  the  Southern  army  was 
immediately  felt.  As  none  of  the  soldiers  were  enlisted  for 
a  period  beyond  the  war,  they  began  all  to  clamor  for  their 
discharges,  contending  that  they  had  an  immediate  right  to 
be  released  from  duty.  In  the  Maryland  line,  particularly, 
it  required  all  the  energy  of  their  officers  to  prevent  a 
general  insurrection  and  their  moving  off  in  a  body.  Upon 
one  occasion  General  Greene  had  actually  to  draw  up  the 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  393.  This  hostile  sentiment  to  the 
Continental  army  and  impressments  was  not  limited  to  South  Carolina, 
says  Johnson.  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  how  it  would  have  been  possible 
for  the  Southern  commander,  perhaps  for  the  United  States,  to  have 
maintained  another  campaign.  The  people  were  utterly  worn  out  and 
disgusted  with  the  system  of  impressments  and  specific  contributions,  and 
the  refusal  in  some  States  to  contribute  their  quotas  in  cash  or  permit  the 
collection  of  a  duty  must  have  produced  (and  finally  did  produce)  a 
general  resolution  of  the  States  to  the  same  effect.  ^  Ibid. 


702  HISTORY  OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

troops  in  whom  he  could  confide,  charge  his  artillery  with 
grape,  and  post  the  artillerists  with  lighted  matches  to 
awe  down  the  mutinous  spirit  which  had  indicated  itself 
by  the  most  unequivocal  signs.  The  cavalry,  which  had 
been  sent  to  the  Congaree  for  the  convenience  of  forage, 
broke  through  all  control ;  one  hundred  of  them,  placing  a 
Sergeant  Dangerfield  at  their  head,  moved  off  in  a  bod}'-, 
and  actually  seized  the  horses  of  those  who  would  not  join 
them,  and  apportioned  them  to  their  own  use. 

Orders  were  received  from  the  Secretary  of  War  for  fur- 
loughing  the  troops  until  the  signing  of  the  definitive 
articles  of  peace,  which  were  immediately  carried  into  effect 
as  to  the  few  troops  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia ;  but 
those  of  North  Carolina  and  Virginia  were  ordered  to  their 
respective  States  to  be  furloughed,  and  those  of  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania  it  was  proposed  to  send  home  by  water. 
A  trifle  of  pay  had  been  voted  them  by  Congress,  and  as 
soon  as  that  could  be  distributed  the  troops  of  North  Caro- 
lina and  Virginia  were  promptly  despatched ;  but  such 
were  the  delays  that  attended  the  collection  of  transports 
that  the  other  troops  did  not  get  off  until  July,  1783. 
Nothing  could  exceed  the  uneasiness  that  this  occasioned. 
A  contract  had  been  entered  into  b}^  Mr.  Morris  with  some 
merchants  in  Philadelphia  to  furnish  the  necessary  trans- 
ports, but  from  delays  in  collecting  them,  and  their  un- 
usually long  passage,  the  stay  of  the  army  was  protracted 
until  the  diseases  of  the  climate  began  to  reappear  among 
them.  Their  murmurs  then  ran  high ;  they  charged  the 
government  with  having  deceived  them,  and  hundreds  who 
had  served,  some  for  seven  years,  deserted  in  groups,  and 
forfeited  their  pay.  Nearly  one-third  of  their  number 
were  on  the  sick  list  when  the  transports  left  Charlestown.^ 
Upon  arriving  at  Philadelphia,  these  remnants  of  the 
1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  398-400. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  703 

Southern  army,  as  it  was  called,  were  received  with  the 
ringing  of  bells  and  every  other  testimony  which  a  gratified 
people  could  render  to  their  merits  and  services.  St. 
Michael's  bells  would  have  rung  for  joy  upon  their  depar- 
ture from  South  Carolina,  had  those  bells  not  been  carried 
off  by  the  British.  Their  reception  in  Philadelphia  was 
soon  after  rewarded  by  outrage  and  renewed  mutiny.^ 

But  whatever  were  the  sentiments  of  the  State  in  regard 
to  the  army  and  its  commander,  the  legislature  stood 
liberally  to  its  purpose  of  rewarding  General  Greene  for 
his  services.  Boone's  Barony,  a  very  valuable  body  of 
land  on  the  south  of  the  Edisto,  with  a  portion  of  the 
slaves  attached  to  the  land  as  the  property  of  one  of  the 
confiscated  estates,  were  ordered  by  the  legislature  to  be 
conveyed  to  General  Greene  ;  the  rest  of  the  negroes  be- 
longing to  the  plantation,  the  legislature,  upon  his  appli- 
cation, set  a  value  upon,  and  allowed  a  credit  to  enable 
General  Greene  to  purchase  them.  The  slaves  were  valued 
and  transferred  to  him.  And  thus,  as  it  was  observed,  the 
Rhode  Island  Quaker  soldier  became  a  South  Carolina 
slaveholder  and  planter.  He  did  not,  however,  remain  in 
South  Carolina.  Pie  removed  to  Georgia,  where  he  settled 
upon  a  plantation  called  Mulberry  Grove,  confiscated  prop- 
erty which  had  been  bestowed  upon  him  by  the  State  of 
Georgia.     There  he  died,  on  the  19th  of  June,  1786. 

In  reviewing  the  events  of  the  few  months  which  had 
elapsed  since  the  evacuation  of  Charlestown,  one  would 
almost  imagine,  says  Johnson,  that  we  had  proposed  to 
trace  the  origin  and  progress  of  anti-federalism,  to  develop 
the  causes  that  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution, or  the  distribution  of  parties  into  Federal  and 
Republican. 

1  Johnson's  Life  of  Greene,  vol.  II,  398-400  ;  Marshall's  Life  of  Wash- 
ington, vol.  IV,  615. 


CONCLUSION 

We  have  now  accomplished  the  purpose  announced  in 
the  introductory  chapter  to  this  history  of  South  Carolina. 
We  have  traced  the  development  of  the  State,  socially  and 
politically,  from  the  inception  of  the  colony  to  the  end 
of  the  American  Revolution.  The  thirteen  colonies,  after 
seven  years'  struggle,  we  have  now  seen  recognized  as  in- 
dependent of  Great  Britain,  and  South  Carolina  a  sovereign 
State. 

A  brief  review  of  the  salient  points  of  the  story  will  be 
a  fitting  conclusion  to  our  work. 

The  isolated  position  of  the  colony  of  South  Carolina 
from  its  inception  to  its  ultimate  development  as  a  State 
has  been  pointed  out.  The  colony  had  been  planted  in  a 
far-away  position — an  outpost  —  as  an  assertion  of  Britannic 
right  to  disputed  territory ;  so  planted,  it  had  been  left  to 
struggle  for  its  existence  against  Spaniards,  French,  and 
Indians,  with  but  such  little  assistance  as  her  twin  sister. 
North  Carolina,  could  occasionally  afford.  She  was  a  British 
colony  planted  for  imperial  purposes  of  the  mother  country, 
and  yet,  with  one  exception,  that  of  Oglethorpe's  regiment, 
which  passed  through  Charlestown  on  its  way  to  Florida  in 
1738,  no  British  troops  set  foot  upon  her  soil  until  1760, 
when  Montgomery's  regiment  was  sent  to  meet  the  Chero- 
kees,  who  had  been  set  on  to  the  British  frontier  by  the 
French,  with  whom  England  was  at  war.  For  nearly 
seventy  years,  that  is,  from  1670  to  1738,  the  colony  had 
struggled  alone,  without  the  aid  of  a  British  soldier,  against 
Indians,  Spaniards,  and  Frencli,  the  enemies  of  Great  Brit- 

704 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  705 

aiii,  and  against  pirates,  the  enemies  of  mankind.  Then 
had  been  planted  the  feeble  colony  of  Georgia,  between 
the  Spaniards  in  Florida  and  the  colony  in  South  Carolina. 
To  disasters  of  all  kinds  the  Carolina  colony  had  opposed 
a  stubborn  resistance,  and  with  slow  growth  had  gradually 
developed  into  a  small  but  wealthy  community. 

There  were  essential  differences,  as  we  have  seen, 
between  South  Carolina  and  the  other  colonies,  in  the 
source  of  her  institution,  and  in  the  manner  of  their  devel- 
opment. These  had  not  originated,  so  to  speak,  on  her 
own  soil,  but  had  been  transferred  with  her  first  settlers,  in 
an  advanced  condition  of  development,  from  the  British 
West  Indies,  principally  from  Barbadoes,  the  settlers 
bringing  with  them  institutions  of  a  planters'  colony,  social, 
civil,  and  military,  all  based  upon  that  of  African  slavery. 

Isolated  from  the  other  colonies,  left  to  struggle  for 
existence  as  best  they  might,  the  people  of  South  Carolina 
early  learned  the  lesson  of  self-reliance,  and  with  indepen- 
dence of  the  Proprietors  for  defence,  they  grew  restless  of 
their  authority,  and  were  the  first  colonists  successfully  to 
rebel  against  the  government  provided  for  them  in  England. 
The  revolution  "  of  the  people,"  as  it  was  termed  in  1719, 
it  is  true,  was  connived  at,  if  not  even  to  some  extent  at 
least  instigated,  by  those  at  home,  who  wished  to  recover 
for  the  king  the  authority  recklessly  granted  to  the  Pro- 
prietors. But  it  was  a  dangerous  appeal,  that  of  the  king 
to  the  people ;  and  so  the  prediction  of  the  time  that  if 
that  "  revolt  is  not  crop't  in  the  bud,  they  [the  people]  will 
set  up  for  themselves  against  his  Majesty,"  was  ultimately 
fulfilled.  The  revolt  of  1719  was  not  cropped  in  the  bud, 
and  the  people,  tasting  of  the  power  to  put  down  one  and 
set  up  another,  had  now  overthrown  the  Proprietors  for  the 
king.  The  time  was  to  come  when  they  would  overthrow 
the  king  for  themselves. 

VOL.  IV.  — 2z 


706  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

But  circumstances  conspired  for  half  a  century  to  prevent 
any  such  desire.  South  Carolina  became  the  favored  colony 
of  Great  Britain,  and  under  the  first  two  Georges,  though 
but  few  troops  were  sent  to  her  assistance  against  the  Span- 
iards, the  French,  and  Indians,  she  was,  on  the  other  hand, 
left  with  but  little  interference,  to  prosper  and  accumulate 
wealth.  Indeed,  her  treatment  by  the  mother  country  was 
not  only  merely  passively  favorable ;  she  was  the  recipient 
of  beneficial  measures  in  her  development.  Two  great 
staple  crops  were  found  adapted  to  her  soil  and  climate, 
and  susceptible  of  profitable  cultivation  by  negro  labor,  and 
for  the  accommodation  of  this  her  trade,  the  navigation 
laws  of  England  —  that  upon  which  it  was  believed  tliat  the 
greatness  of  the  kingdom  depended  —  were  modified,  and 
bounties  were  generously  given  to  induce  the  cultivation 
of  other  products  for  the  market  at  home.  True,  she  was 
still  in  a  great  measure  restricted  to  commerce  with  the 
mother  country ;  but  as  the  mother  country  took  all  her 
commodities  at  remunerative  prices,  she  felt  no  burdens  in 
restriction  of  her  trade.  And  herein  lay  a  great  difference 
between  herself  and  most  of  the  others,  especially  the 
Northern  colonies.  The  navigation  laws  of  Cromwell, 
enforced  after  the  Restoration  with  even  greater  strictness 
and  severity  than  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  did 
not  materially  affect  her  interests  while  they  crushed  and 
ruined  the  interests  of  others. 

Her  commerce  was  not  only  undisturbed  by  those  laws 
so  ruinous  to  others,  but  led  to  closer  relations  with  the 
mother  country.  The  intercourse  between  London  and 
Charlestown  became  as  close  as  that  which  had  been  so 
long  maintained  between  Bridgetown,  Barbadoes,  and  the 
great  city;  an  intercourse  so  intimate  that  the  West 
Indian  was  said  to  be  more  familiar  with  the  streets  of 
London  than  the  British  squire  who  lived  within  a  few 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  707 

miles  of  the  city.  The  Carolina  Coffee  House  was  a 
London  institution.  Scarcely  a  week  passed  that  some 
vessel  did  not  sail  for  England  from  Charlestown,  and 
few  of  these  did  not  carry  passengers.  The  regular 
packets  were  filled  with  travellers  to  and  fro  across  the 
ocean.  There  were  few  people  in  Charlestown  who  had 
not  crossed  and  recrossed  the  Atlantic.  In  this,  as  has 
appeared,  the  people  of  Carolina  were  different  from 
those  of  the  Northern  States,  in  which  we  are  told  that 
a  man  who  had  been  to  Europe  was  pointed  out  as  a 
curiosity.  And  so  it  was  that,  out  of  a  list  of  114 
Americans  admitted  as  members  of  the  Inns  of  Court 
in  London  in  the  twenty-seven  years  from  1759  to  1786, 
46  were  South  Carolinians,  and  of  the  30  Americans  in 
London  in  1774  who  petitioned  Parliament  against  the 
Boston  Port  Bill,  15  were  from  South  Carolina. 

The  sons  of  the  opulent  of  South  Carolina  were 
sent  to  England  for  their  education,  and  after  passing 
through  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  not  infrequently  remained 
to  eat  commons  at  the  Temple,  and  to  return,  not  only 
with  their  academic  degrees,  but  as  English  barristers  as 
well.  The  taste  for  British  politics,  thus  inspired,  became 
a  part  of  the  lives  of  the  people.  It  was  upon  this  that 
was  founded  the  Charlestown  Library  Society  in  1748, 
when  a  few  young  men  were  associated,  and  contributed 
among  themselves  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  fund  to 
collect  new  pamphlets  and  papers  published  in  Great 
Britain  —  thus  to  keep  abreast  of  the  times  "at  home," 
and  to  follow  the  struggle  between  the  great  orators 
and  pamphleteers  as  they  fought  for  Whigs  or  Tories. 
Thus  it  was,  that,  regardless  of  Wilkes's  personal  char- 
acter, the  leaders  in  South  Carolina  warmly  espoused  his 
cause  as  that  of  liberty,  and  associated  it  with  the  strug- 
gle over  the  Stamp  Act.     The  conduct  of  the  people  in 


708  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

the  Wilkes  case  was  similar  to  that  pursued  by  them  in 
regard  to  the  Stamp  Act  and  to  the  tax  on  tea.  In 
neither  case  had  they  any  material  interest  at  stake. 
In  the  matter  of  the  Stamp  Act  and  in  that  of  the  tax  on 
tea,  they  entered  into  the  contest  as  a  matter  of  principle, 
and  a  sympathy  with  the  people  of  the  Northern  States, 
who  were  so  grievously  oppressed  by  the  navigation  laws. 
But  in  all  this  agitation,  it  was  English  politics  which 
the  young  men  were  discussing.  The  people,  young  and 
old,  abhorred  the  idea  of  a  severance  of  their  ties  to  the 
mother  country  which  New  England  began  to  agitate. 
The  revolutionists  in  South  Carolina  were  Chathamites. 
But  step  by  step,  almost  unconsciously,  they  were  drawn 
into  the  struggle,  and  then  from  resistance  to  revolution, 
from  revolution  to  independence. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  people  of  South  Caro- 
lina as  a  whole  had  been  at  first  by  a  vast  majority  opposed 
to  separation.  The  extreme  Revolutionary  party  was 
confined  to  the  coast,  and  even  in  that  region  there  were 
many,  very  many,  who,  though  for  resistance  to  the  uncon- 
stitutional proceedings  of  Parliament,  as  they  conceived, 
regarded  with  horror  the  very  idea  of  being  no  longer  a 
part  of  the  great  British  Empire ;  while  in  the  Up-Coun- 
try  the  Scotch-Irish  and  the  newly  come  Virginians  in 
the  middle  country  were  too  busy  with  their  new  settle- 
ments to  be  concerning  themselves  with  questions  which 
they  regarded  as  but  Low-Country  politics.  What  concern 
was  it  to  them  whether  stamps  were  required  on  legal 
papers  or  not,  when  there  were  no  courts  in  their  section 
in  which  to  use  them,  and  when  for  their  protection 
against  horse  thieves  and  other  criminals  they  were  forced 
to  the  necessity  of  organizing  courts  of  regulators,  which 
became  as  dangerous  almost  as  the  evils  from  which  they 
were  established  to  protect  them?      Why  ask   them   to 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  709 

fight  against  taxation  without  representation  in  Parlia- 
ment in  England,  when  they  had  no  representation  in  the 
General  Assembly  which  met  in  Charlestown?  It  was 
most  unfortunate  that  the  Revolution  found  the  people  of 
the  province,  by  and  large,  in  an  inchoate  condition.  The 
normal  order  of  settlement  of  the  country  had  been,  as  we 
have  seen,  suddenly  changed.  Prior  to  1750  immigration 
had  come  by  way  of  the  sea,  and  from  Charlestown  had 
pushed  up  the  rivers,  carrying  with  it  the  civil  and  social 
organization  of  the  coast ;  but  in  the  eighty  years  since  the 
beginning  of  the  colony,  the  settlement  of  the  province 
had  extended  but  little  beyond  the  falls  of  the  rivers. 
Then,  after  Braddock's  defeat,  had  come  the  immense  tide 
of  population  from  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  by  way  of 
the  foot  of  the  mountains,  filling  up  that  region  with 
Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  and  some  Germans,  and  the  mid- 
dle country  with  English  Virginians,  until  it  was  estimated 
that  those  sections  contained  two-thirds  of  the  population 
of  the  State.  This  immigration  had  come,  not  as  individ- 
uals and  families,  but  as  communities,  bringing  with  them 
their  own  religious  and  social  systems.  It  is  remarkable, 
too,  that  it  had  come  so  quietly  that  the  old  colonists  on 
the  coast,  sitting  in  their  Assembly,  elected  from  parishes 
organized  under  the  Church  of  England,  were  scarcely 
aware  of  the  presence  of  such  a  people  until  they  found 
themselves  outnumbered  in  the  province.  Measures  for 
the  extension  of  the  parish  system  and  the  establishment 
of  schools  for  the  children  and  courts  for  the  people  had 
been  contemplated,  and  it  will  be  recollected  to  some  ex- 
tent inaugurated,  by  the  General  Assembly ;  but  had  been 
effectually  stifled  in  London  by  the  sine  cure  holders  of 
patent  offices  living  in  England,  whose  interests  would 
thereby  be  affected,  and  who  through  court  influence  re- 
quired to  be  bought  off  before  such  measures  should  be 


710  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

allowed  to  pass.  This  had  been  done,  and  courts  pro- 
vided had  actually  been  opened ;  but  the  parishes  had  not 
yet  been  extended,  nor  had  provision  yet  been  made  for 
giving  the  people  in  the  back  country  representation  in 
the  Assembly  when  the  Revolution  began.  For  this  con- 
dition of  things  the  newcomers  held  the  people  on  the 
coast  responsible,  and  ridiculed  the  idea  of  being  called 
upon  to  join  in  rebellion  against  the  mother  country  be- 
cause Parliament  in  England  taxed  the  American  colonies 
without  giving  them  representation,  when  they  on  the 
coast  did  the  same  in  regard  to  themselves. 

It  was  an  unfortunate  condition  of  affairs  for  which  the 
Low-Country  people  were  not  altogether,  if  indeed  at  all, 
to  blame ;  but  so  it  happened  that  the  Revolution  found 
the  people  of  South  Carolina  radically  divided  in  a  man- 
ner in  no  wise  connected  with  the  questions  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  colonies.  The  Scotch-Irish  Presby- 
terians, above  the  falls  of  the  rivers,  enjoying  religious 
freedom  to  a  greater  extent  than  ever  before,  and  however 
zealous  for  political  freedom  as  well,  more  concerned  then 
with  settling  their  new  homes  than  with  the  theoretical 
questions  agitated  on  the  coast,  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
commissioners  sent  to  appeal  to  them  to  join  in  the  strug- 
gle against  the  king.  With  but  few  exceptions  they  re- 
frained from  taking  any  part  in  the  struggle  until  rudely 
awakened  by  Tarleton's  slaughter  of  Buford's  men  in 
the  Waxhaws,  and  the  burning  and  desecration  of  their 
churches  upon  the  assumption  that,  as  the  dissenters  in 
New  England  were  the  leaders  in  the  Revolution,  the 
dissenters  in  South  Carolina  must  necessarily  be  rebels 
as  well. 

But  it  so  happened  that,  divided  as  South  Carolina  was 
upon  the  subject  of  the  Revolution,  not  only  upon  its 
general  merits,  but  also  as  to  the  extent  to  which  it  should 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  711 

be  carried,  the  first  decisive  victory  for  the  American 
cause  was  that  of  Fort  Moultrie  in  Charlestown  harbor. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  striking  incident,  to  which  we  have  be- 
fore called  attention,  that  when,  on  the  28th  of  June,  1776, 
Jefferson  at  Philadelphia  was  laying  on  the  table  of  Con- 
gress the  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
the  delegates  from  South  Carolina  were  hesitating  as  to 
their  course,  his  doing  so  was,  all  unconsciously,  saluted 
ill  Charlestown  harbor  by  the  roar  of  artillery  as  the  guns 
of  the  British  fleet  were  pouring  their  broadsides  into  the 
little  log  fort  on  Sullivan's  Island.  We  have  seen  the  de- 
cisive consequences  of  that  great  victory,  one  of  tlie  most 
brilliant  of  the  whole  Revolution  —  a  victory  in  which, 
on  the  American  side,  none  but  South  Carolinian  blood 
was  shed. 

The  victory  of  Fort  Moultrie  secured  three  years  of 
comparative  quiet  to  the  South,  while  the  war  of  the 
Revolution  was  waged  at  the  North,  though  in  that  time 
her  Continental  troops  had  been  greatly  reduced  by  the 
ill-advised  expedition  against  the  British  in  Florida,  an 
expedition  in  which  an  army  was  wasted  without  a  battle 
having  been  fought.  Then  the  war  was  transferred  to 
the  South,  and  South  Carolina  became  its  theatre  —  its 
bloody  ground — its  bloodiest  ground  in  all  the  country. 

Upon  the  evacuation  of  Boston  in  March,  1776,  the  first 
British  movement,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  the  expedi- 
tion of  Sir  Peter  Parker  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton  against 
the  Southern  States,  which  had  culminated  in  the  attack 
upon  Charlestown  harbor,  and  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the 
British  fleet  and  army.  Then  for  three  years  the  conflict 
had  been  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  Northern  States, 
in  which  the  first  object  had  been,  by  a  joint  movement 
from  Canada  down  the  lakes  under  Bargoyne,  and  up  the 
Hudson  from  New  York  by  Sir  William  Howe,  to  cut  off 


712  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

and  isolate  the  New  England  States,  which  it  was  assumed 
in  England  would  end  the  war.  That  movement  had  like- 
wise ended  disastrously,  the  whole  of  Burgoyne's  army 
having  been  captured.  Then  "  Mr.  Lee's  plan  "  of  carry- 
ing the  war  into  the  middle  States  and  capturing  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  the  seat  of  government  of  the  rebel  States, 
had  most  extraordinarily  been  followed  by  the  two  Howes 
at  the  instance  of  the  traitor  Charles  Lee,  while  a  prisoner 
in  their  hands,  to  the  abandonment  of  the  plan  of  campaign 
before  agreed  upon  by  the  two  brothers,  Lord  Howe  and 
Sir  William,  in  conference  with  the  War  Office  in  London. 
Philadelphia  had  been  taken,  but  the  campaign  had  proved 
abortive.  The  Howes  had  been  recalled,  Sir  Henry  Clin- 
ton appointed  commander-in-chief,  and  a  new  programme 
arranged  by  the  British  ministry,  based  upon  two  principal 
ideas :  (1)  the  carrying  the  war  "  from  South  to  North," 
and  (2)  "the  conquering  of  America  by  Americans." 

This  plan,  it  will  be  observed,  was  but  a  recurrence  to 
that  of  1776,  which  had  been  based  upon  the  belief,  not 
without  foundation,  that  the  Revolutionary  movement  in 
the  South  was  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  coast  of 
the  two  Carolinas,  that  the  people  of  the  interior  of  these 
provinces  were  hostile  to  the  governments  in  the  Low- 
Country,  and  ready  to  rise  against  them,  that  especially 
was  this  the  case  in  North  Carolina.  It  was  believed  that, 
if  the  British  could  but  penetrate  to  the  region  in  which 
the  Scotch  refugees  from  Culloden,  who  now,  strange  to 
say,  were  of  all  people  in  America  the  most  loyal  to  the 
house  of  Hanover,  to  wit,  the  neighborhood  of  Cross 
Creek,  in  which  the  town  of  Fayetteville  now  stands,  that 
they  might  establish  a  Royal  government  there,  in  the  rear 
of  the  seats  of  the  State  governments  on  the  coast ;  and 
that,  having  done  so,  the  people  would  flock  to  the  Royal 
standard;  that  a  full  regiment  of  Highlanders  would  be 


IN   THE   KEVOLUTION  713 

formed  to  join  the  British  when  they  reached  that  point, 
and  that  the  strength  of  their  army  would  be  greatly  in- 
creased as  they  marched  through  the  country,  gathering 
recruits  at  every  point ;  that  with  this  growing  army  they 
would  march  triumphantly  through  Virginia  to  the  Chesa- 
peake and  thence  on  northwardly.  These  were  the  basic 
ideas  of  the  campaign  to  be  conducted  upon  the  transfer- 
ence of  the  war  to  the  South. 

The  movement  began,  it  will  be  recollected,  upon  the 
rejection  by  Congress  of  the  terms  of  peace  brought  by  the 
peace  commissioners  from  England  in  1778.  The  British 
garrisons  in  Florida  were  strengthened,  and  General  Provost 
directed  to  move  from  that  quarter,  while  a  considerable 
force  under  Colonel  Campbell  was  despatched  from  New 
York  to  form  a  junction  with  him.  Savannah  was  promptly 
taken  by  Colonel  Campbell,  who  followed  up  his  success 
by  an  advance  into  the  interior  of  Georgia  and  the  defeat 
of  the  American  force  under  General  Ashe  at  Brier  Creek. 
Then  in  1779  had  followed  Moultrie's  affair  at  Beaufort 
and  Provost's  expedition  into  South  Carolina,  in  which  he 
had  nearly  succeeded  in  taking  the  city  of  Charlestown ; 
then  had  been  fought  the  battle  of  Stono,  the  year  1779 
closing  with  the  disastrous  siege  of  Savannah  by  the  com- 
bined French  and  American  forces.  These  had  been  but 
the  beginning  of  the  long  and  terrible  warfare  to  be  waged 
in  South  Carolina. 

Prdvost's  march  had  been  begun,  not  with  any  expec- 
tation of  reaching  Charlestown,  but  more  as  a  feint,  or 
threat,  to  recall  General  Lincoln,  the  Continental  officer 
who  had  superseded  Howe  in  command  of  the  American 
forces  in  the  South,  from  a  movement  of  his  towards 
Augusta  to  counteract  the  effect  of  Ashe's  defeat  at  Brier 
Creek  in  Georgia  ;  failing  to  accomplish  that  object,  Lincoln 
understanding  its  original  purpose,  and  not  believing  that 


714  HISTORY    OF   SOUTH    CAROLINA 

Provost  would  have  the  temerity  to  press  on  to  the  city, 
Provost  had  nearly  succeeded  in  taking  it.  He  had  failed 
to  do  so,  but  his  march  had  not  been  without  results  of  the 
greatest  importance.  He  had  marked  the  road  to  the  city 
and  demonstrated  that  its  true  approach  was  not  from  the 
sea,  but  through  the  various  inlets  in  its  rear.  His  raid 
had  also  shown  the  immense  wealth  of  the  region  through 
which  it  had  been  made,  and  had  given  a  substantial  ear- 
nest of  the  spoils  to  be  obtained  ;  and  more,  it  had  shown 
the  divisions  of  the  people,  the  unreliability  of  the  militia 
of  the  country,  and  the  military  weakness  because  of  the 
negro  slaves.  The  losses  in  the  battle  of  Stono,  at  Beaufort, 
and  in  the  siege  of  Savannah,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  well  knew, 
were  irreparable  to  the  Americans.  The  time  had  arrived, 
therefore,  for  the  more  decisive  inauguration  of  the  grand 
ministerial  plan  of  carrying  the  war  from  South  to  North. 
His  scheme  for  the  fulfilment  of  this  plan  of  campaign 
was  by  calling  in  his  forces  around  New  York,  to  leave  a 
part  of  them  under  Lieutenant-General  Knyphausen  to  con- 
front Washington  on  the  Hudson  during  the  winter,  while, 
with  the  bulk  of  his  army,  he  proceeded  by  sea  to  Savan- 
nah, under  the  convoy  of  Admiral  Arbuthnot,  who  had 
just  arrived  with  a  reenforcement  from  England,  and  land- 
ing there  and  on  the  islands  near  Charlestown,  to  advance 
upon  the  city,  which,  knowing  the  great  weakness  of  the 
Continental  army,  and  the  impossibility  of  any  adequate 
reenforcements  by  Washington  overland  from  New  York, 
it  was  assumed  would  speedily  be  taken ;  this  accom- 
plished, Sir  Henry,  leaving  a  sufficient  part  of  the  army 
under  Lord  Cornwallis  to  make  a  triumphal  march  through 
the  Carolinas  and  Virginia,  he  would  return  with  the  rest 
of  the  army  to  New  York ;  all  this  was  to  be  done  in  mid- 
winter, while  the  ice  and  snow  would  prevent  operations  at 
the  North.     As  we  have  before  shown,  this  plan  was  the 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  715 

prototype  of  Sherman's  march  to  the  sea,  and  from  the  sea 
to  the  rear  of  Lee's  army  in  1865,  even  to  the  detail,  which 
had  been  arranged,  that  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  after  his  return 
to  New  York,  should  send  an  expedition  to  land  at  Ports- 
mouth, Virginia,  which,  moving  across  that  State,  should 
meet  Cornwallis  on  his  arrival  there,  who,  with  the  joint 
forces,  was  to  proceed  to  Baltimore  and  thence  northward  as 
circumstances  would  allow.  This  part  of  the  scheme,  it 
will  be  observed,  was  that  followed  in  1865,  when  General 
Terry's  expedition  v/as  landed  at  Wilmington  and  joined 
Sherman  in  North  Carolina.  This  was  the  grand  plan 
which  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  undertaken  to  carry  out. 

We  have  seen  the  result  —  Charlestown  would  not  at 
once  fall.  Her  walls  ^vould  not  come  down  as  Jericho's  did, 
not  even  in  six  days,  though  the  men  of  war  compassed  her 
about,  and  the  trumpets  were  blown!  Time  pressed  Sir 
Henry,  but  the  city  would  not  surrender.  Time,  hideed,  was 
now  very  precious  to  the  British.  The  season  for  active 
operations  at  the  North  was  approaching,  and  it  behooved  Sir 
Henry  to  get  back  to  New  York  as  soon  as  possible,  lest 
Washington,  taking  advantage  of  his  absence,  might,  with 
a  recruited  army,  fall  upon  Knyphausen's  depleted  force. 
At  last,  on  the  12th  of  May,  the  city  capitulated,  and  Sir 
Henry  at  once  addressed  himself  to  the  securing  of  the 
fruits  of  his  victory.  He  had  captured  the  great  bulk  of 
the  Continental  army  in  the  Southern  States,  which  he  held 
as  prisoners.  In  order  to  get  in  the  militia  of  the  State, 
he  now  offered  the  same  terms  to  all  who  would  come  in 
and  surrender  as  he  had  allowed  the  troops  in  the  city. 
His  offer  was  accepted,  and  large  numbers  laid  down  their 
arms,  gave  their  paroles,  and  accepted  certificates  of  pro- 
tection of  their  property.  But  time  was  passing,  and  a 
new  cause  for  anxiety  arose.  Late  in  April  the  Marquis 
de  Lafayette  had  arrived  at  Boston  on  his  return  from 


716  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAEOLINA 

his  native  country,  which  he  had  obtained  permission  to 
revisit,  and  where  he  had  been  received  with  every  mark 
of  favor  and  distinction  at  the  Court  of  Versailles,  and 
from  which  he  had  brought  information  that  his  Most 
Christian  Majesty  had  consented  to  send  a  considerable 
land  and  naval  force  to  assist  in  the  ensuing  campaign. 
The  British  had  learned  of  this,  and  it  became  of  the 
greatest  importance  that  Sir  Henry  Clinton  should  bring 
matters  to  a  close  in  South  Carolina,  and  be  able  to  return 
to  New  York  with  part  of  his  army  before  the  French 
expedition  should  reach  America.  In  this  emergency  he 
fell  upon  the  unfortunate  device  of  revoking  the  paroles 
he  had  taken,  and  issuing  a  proclamation,  on  the  3d  of 
June,  declaring  that  all  inhabitants  of  the  province  who 
were  prisoners  on  parole  and  were  not  in  the  regular 
military  line,  should,  from  the  20th  of  that  month,  be  freed 
and  exempted  from  all  such  paroles  and  be  restored  to  all 
the  rights  and  duties  of  citizens,  and  that  all  such  persons 
who  should  neglect  to  return  to  their  allegiance  and  due 
submission  to  his  Majesty's  government,  should  be  con- 
sidered as  enemies  and  rebels  to  the  same,  and  be  treated 
accordingly;  upon  this  point,  as  we  have  seen,  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  Revolution  in  South  Carolina  turned. 
Having  issued  this  proclamation.  Sir  Henry  sailed  for  New 
York  with  four  thousand  men,  and  reached  that  place  just 
in  time  to  escape  an  encounter  with  the  French  fleet  and 
army,  which  arrived  at  Newport  on  the  12th  of  July. 

Upon  the  fall  of  Charlestown  the  British  troops  had  at 
once  been  advanced  into  the  interior  of  the  State,  and  the 
slaughter  of  a  Virginia  regiment  which  had  been  sent  to 
reenforce  Lincoln's  army  in  the  South,  had  taken  place 
in  the  Waxhaws  under  circumstances  of  great  atrocity. 
British  posts  were  established  at  Ninety  Six,  Camden,  and 
Cheraw.     And  so   it  was   that  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  just 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  717 

before  his  departure  for  New  York,  with  great  assurance, 
could  write  to  Lord  George  Germain,  Secretary  of  State 
for  War  in  England,  that  he  could  venture  to  assert  that 
there  were  few  men  in  South  Carolina  who  were  not  either 
prisoners  or  with  the  British.  But  Lord  Cornwallis,  his 
successor,  was  soon  to  realize  how  fallacious  were  such 
appearances.  The  Continental  army  under  Gates,  sent  by 
Washington  to  bar  his  path  on  his  march  to  the  north- 
ward, he  had  met  at  Camden,  promptly  defeated  and 
routed,  and  the  road,  at  least  as  far  as  Cross  Creek,  the 
former  trysting  place,  where  the  British  and  Tories  were 
to  meet  and  set  up  the  government  in  the  interior, 
seemed  clear  and  open.  But  there  was  a  lion  in  his  path! 
Misunderstanding  the  condition  of  affairs  in  South  Caro- 
lina, and  assuming,  as  we  have  observed,  that  because  the 
dissenters  in  New  England  had  been  the  moving  spirits 
in  the  Revolution,  that  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  in 
North  and  South  Carolina  were  likewise  rebels,  Tarleton 
and  Huck  had  dashed  in  among  them,  slaughtered  Bu- 
ford's  men,  and  cut  and  slashed  among  these  people,  who 
had  really  as  yet  taken  but  little  part  in  the  struggle.  The 
British  had,  indeed,  stirred  up  a  hornet's  nest.  Scotch- 
Irish  blood  was  never  slow  at  taking  fire  !  If  as  rebels 
they  were  to  be  treated,  rebels  they  indeed  would  be  !  A 
man,  too,  was  found  to  lead  them.  Sumter,  without  a 
commission  from  either  the  State  or  Congress,  gathering  a 
little  party  at  Clem's  Creek,  in  the  Waxhaws,  just  below 
the  line  between  North  and  South  Carolina,  was  joined  there 
by  Hill,  Neel,  and  Lacey,  and  Henry  and  Richard  Hampton, 
and  the  Taylors  and  Bratton,  and  McLure  and  Winn,  and 
Williams  and  Brandon,  and  by  the  Virginians  recently 
come  into  the  province,  and  refugees  from  the  Low-Country, 
and  these  all,  with  Davie's  little  band  of  North  Carolinians 
as  a  nucleus,  formed  and  organized  themselves  as  partisan 


T18  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

bands  to  stem  the  tide  of  British  progress.  Assisted  only 
by  a  few  similar  small  bands  from  North  Carolina  and 
upper  Georgia,  Sumter  first  raised  the  fallen  standard  of 
American  independence  in  a  country  which  was  overrun 
by  British  troops,  and  claimed  by  the  British  commander 
to  be  conquered. 

Marion,  who  had  fortunately  escaped  capture  upon  the 
fall  of  Charlestown,  had  hastened  to  join  the  Continental 
army  advancing  through  North  Carolina,  and,  still  more 
fortunately  despised  by  Gates,  had  been  sent  on  by  that 
officer  to  gather  up  boats  on  the  Pee  Dee,  —  in  truth, 
to  get  him  and  his  ragged  associates  away  from  his  regular 
army.  Marion  had  done  more  than  gather  boats  on  the 
Pee  Dee.  There  he  too  raised  the  standard  of  indepen- 
dence, and  gathered  not  only  boats,  but  men,  and  organized 
a  partisan  corps  like  Sumter's.  With  him  were  the  two 
Horrys,  Peter  and  Hugh,  the  Jameses,  McCottry,  Baxter, 
and  Vanderhorst.  These  partisan  bands  in  a  month,  from 
the  12th  of  July  to  the  12th  of  August,  in  twelve  engage- 
ments, had  inflicted  a  loss  upon  the  enemy  of  five  hundred 
men,  at  a  loss  to  themselves  of  but  half  that  number.  The 
field  had  thus  been  thoroughly  prepared  for  Gates's  ad- 
vance, but  that  vainglorious  officer  had  been  met  by  Lord 
Cornwallis  at  Camden,  and  utterly  defeated. 

The  Continental  army  routed  and  dispersed,  the  cause  of 
American  independence  was  now  abandoned  to  the  defence 
of  the  partisan  bands  in  South  Carolina.  The  French  fleet 
and  army,  which  had  arrived  at  Newport  on  the  12th  of 
July,  having  gone  into  that  harbor  and  disembarked,  and 
the  British  recovering  the  command  of  the  water  by  the 
arrival  of  a  reenforcement  to  its  navy,  had  been  caught 
and  locked  up  there,  where  they  remained  for  a  year, 
"  bottled  up,"  to  use  a  later  famous  expression.  Time  was 
now  again  of  the  utmost  consequence  to  the  British  plan 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  719 

of  campaign.  If  Cornwallis  could  now  have  pressed  on, 
reached  Cross  Creek,  and  found  there  the  assistance  he 
had  been  told  to  expect,  had  received  the  expected  addi- 
tion to  his  army,  and  had  then  pushed  on  to  Virginia,  it  is 
not  improbable  he  might  have  carried  out  the  grand  plan 
of  campaign  while  the  French  lay  cooped  up  at  Newport. 
It  behooved  him,  therefore,  to  move,  and  he  did  so.  But 
he  could  not  throw  off  the  partisans  of  Sumter,  Marion, 
Davie,  Clarke,  Shelby,  and  Sevier.  They  hung  upon  his 
flanks,  opposed  his  march,  and  broke  up  his  communica- 
tions, and  finally,  at  King's  Mountain,  defeated  and  killed 
Ferguson  and  captured  his  command.  Notwithstanding 
the  brilliancy  of  Tarleton's  movements,  now  after  Marion, 
and  then  after  Sumter,  Cornwallis,  who  had  reached  Char- 
lotte, in  spite  of  Davie's  small  corps,  which  had  held  him 
at  bay  for  some  time,  and  had  advanced  some  distance  be- 
yond, found  himself  obliged  to  abandon  his  march,  so  nec- 
essary to  the  accomplishment  of  the  British  campaign,  and 
not  only  himself  to  return  with  his  army  to  South  Carolina 
and  take  position  at  Winnsboro,  but  to  send  to  Leslie,  whom 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  despatched  to  Virginia  to  meet 
him  there,  orders  to  abandon  the  attempt  to  form  a  junction 
with  him  in  Virginia,  and  to  come  by  sea  to  Charlestown, 
and  thence  to  join  him  at  Winnsboro.  Thus  had  these 
volunteer  bands,  without  assistance  from  Congress,  broken 
up  the  plans  of  the  enemy,  and  detained  the  army  of 
invasion  in  the  backwoods  of  South  Carolina.  In  these 
affairs  the  partisan  bands  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  had  killed,  wounded,  and  taken  prisoners  of  the 
enemy  three  times  as  many  men  as  they  had  themselves 
lost. 

It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  results  of  the  work  of 
these  volunteers  in  South  Carolina  at  this  juncture.  It  is 
not  the  language  of  extravagance  to  say  that  they  had 


720  HISTORY  or   SOUTH  CAKOLINA 

rendered  tlie  most  essential  and  vital  service  to  the  whole 
country  in  an  hour  of  its  greatest  extremity.  True,  they 
did  not  know  of  the  grand  ministerial  plan  which  Lord 
Cornwallis  had  been  charged  to  carry  out,  and  upon  which 
he  was  then  embarked,  and  with  which  they  were  so  ma- 
terially interfering.  They  probably  did  not  know  that  the 
French  fleet,  from  the  assistance  of  which  so  much  had 
been  expected,  was  cooped  up  at  Newport,  nor  how  im- 
portant it  was  to  delay  and  prevent  the  consummation  of  the 
British  plans  until  it  could  be  released  —  in  short,  they 
did  not  know  what  great  consequences  would  flow  from 
their  exertions  to  harass  and  retard  the  British  on  their 
march  through  the  State;  but  they  acted  upon  each 
occasion,  as  it  presented  itself,  of  striking  a  blow  in  behalf 
of  liberty ;  content  with  performing  small  things  as  the 
opportunity  allowed,  they  accomplished  great  results  in  the 
cause  of  the  common  country.  Huck's  defeat.  Flat  Rock, 
Rocky  Mount,  Hanging  Rock,  Musgrove's  Mills,  Nel- 
son's Ferry,  Fishdam,  and  Blackstock,  and  even  King's 
Mountain,  were  small  affairs  as  great  wars  go,  but  they 
counted  up  to  great  proportions  in  the  end.  It  is  not, 
perhaps,  too  much  to  say  that  at  a  most  critical  moment 
they  saved  the  cause  of  liberty  and  independence  in 
America. 

But  now  came  General  Nathanael  Greene — the  ^^ Deputy 
Saviour,"  as  he  has  been  almost  blasphemously  styled  — 
to  reap  the  fruits  and  the  honors  not  only  of  what  had 
been  already  done  by  the  partisan  bands,  but  of  what  they 
should  thereafter  do.  General  Greene  brought  with  him 
his  staff,  and  Lee's  Legion  followed  him.  We  have  seen 
the  false  position  he  first  took,  and  the  unfortunate  letter 
he  wrote  to  Sumter  upon  assuming  command  of  the  de- 
partment. It  will  be  remembered  how  complacently  he  had 
regarded  his  position  at  Cheraw.     It  made,  he  thought, 


IN  THE   REVOLUTION  721 

the  most  of  his  inferior  force.  It  compelled  his  adversary 
to  divide  his,  and  held  him  in  doubt  as  to  his  own  line  of 
conduct.  The  enemy  could  not  leave  Morgan,  whom  he 
had  sent  to  threaten  Ninety  Six,  to  come  against  him,  or 
his  post  at  Ninety  Six  would  be  exposed.  He  could  not 
go  after  Morgan  or  prosecute  his  views  upon  Virginia 
while  he  was  there  with  the  whole  country  before  him. 
He  was  as  near  Charlestown  as  was  Cornwallis.  But  al- 
though, he  added,  there  was  nothing  to  obstruct  his  march 
to  Charlestown,  he  was  far  from  having  such  a  design  in 
contemplation,  in  the  present  relative  positions  and  strength 
of  the  two  armies.  In  all  this  the  result  showed  that 
General  Greene  was  utterly  at  fault.  He  had  divided  his 
army,  sending  Morgan  with  his  best  regiment,  and  all  his 
cavalry  except  that  of  Lee's  Legion,  to  the  west  of  the 
Broad  to  threaten  Ninety  Six.  Lee's  Legion  he  had  sent 
to  Georgetown  while  he  rested  upon  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  Pee  Dee.  Morgan  defeated  Tarleton  at  Cowpens,  but, 
notwithstanding  this,  Cornwallis,  who  had  drawn  Leslie 
over  the  Catawba,  and  united  his  command  with  his  own, 
without  hesitation  or  regard  for  Greene's  position  on  his 
flank,  moved  forward  between  the  Catawba  and  the  Broad 
on  his  march  to  North  Carolina.  The  two  great  rivers,  the 
Catawba  and  the  Pee  Dee,  protected  his  flank,  while  Lord 
Rawdon  was  left  at  Camden  with  a  force  sufficient  to  for- 
bid any  advance  by  Greene  upon  Charlestown  had  the 
latter  contemplated  such  a  movement. 

Finding  himself  mistaken  as  to  the  supposed  advantages 
of  his  position.  General  Greene  appears  to  have  lost  his 
judgment.  Turning  over  the  command  of  what  army  he 
had  to  General  Huger,  he  adopted  the  most  extraordinary 
course  of  going  himself  to  hunt  Morgan  in  the  w^oods  of 
North  Carolina.  With  only  a  guide,  one  aide,  and  a  ser- 
geant's guard  of  cavalry,  he  struck  out  upon  a  mad  ride 

VOL.  IV.  —  3  a 


722  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

of  125  miles  across  the  county,  and  across  the  line  of  his 
adversary's  advance.  Owing  to  the  delay  of  his  lordship 
at  Ramsour's  Mill  for  two  days,  Greene  happily  succeeded 
in  finding  Morgan,  on  the  30th  of  January,  at  Sherard's 
Ford.  But  what  was  the  purpose,  or  where  the  necessity, 
of  the  exposure  of  the  commander  of  the  department  to 
the  betrayal  of  Tories  who  infested  the  country,  and  other 
great  dangers  of  such  a  journey  ?  Was  not  Morgan  quite 
as  able  to  take  care  of  the  small  party  he  had,  as  was  Huger 
to  the  safe  conduct  of  the  rest  of  the  army  ?  His  object, 
doubtless,  was  to  effect  a  junction  of  the  two  divisions  of 
his  army  at  some  point  in  front  of  the  British  advance, 
and  for  this  purpose  to  communicate  with  Morgan.  But 
this  would  have  been  effected  quite  as  well  by  couriers  or 
scouts  as  by  the  commander  of  the  department  himself  in 
person.  Indeed,  as  soon  as  he  found  Morgan,  he  had  to 
communicate  again  with  Huger,  but  as  he  could  not,  like 
Oglethorpe  in  his  Florida  campaign,  be  riding  back  and 
forth,  he  had  now  to  content  himself  with  but  a  letter  to 
Huger. 

There  was  nothing  in  this  first  essay  of  the  new  com- 
mander to  inspire  confidence  in  his  military  judgment.  He 
had  manifestly  been  mistaken  in  the  disposition  of  his 
forces,  and  had  been  out-manoeuvred  by  his  opponent,  not- 
withstanding Morgan's  brilliant  victory.  So  evident  was 
this,  that,  in  the  popular  mind,  his  utter  ruin  at  the  time, 
says  his  devoted  biographer,  was  saved  only  by  a  miracu- 
lous rise  of  the  Yadkin,  which  prevented  the  British 
advance.  What  really  did  save  him  was  the  delay  of 
Cornwallis  at  Ramsour's  Mill  to  destroy  his  baggage.  Then 
had  followed  the  campaign  in  North  Carolina,  culminating 
in  the  battle  of  Guilford  Court-house,  in  which  Greene 
was  defeated,  but  Cornwallis,  crippled  by  his  losses,  unable 
to  take  advantage  of  his  victory,  and  falling  back  to  the 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  723 

coast  for  supplies,  became  the  pursued  instead  of  the 
pursuer. 

In  the  meanwhile,  though  the  State  had  again  been 
abandoned  by  the  Continental  army,  the  war  had  not 
therefore  ceased  in  her  limits.  Sumter  and  Marion  had 
not  retired  from  the  field,  though  the  former  was  suffering 
badly  from  the  wound  received  at  Blackstock  in  Novem- 
ber. In  the  three  months  of  Greene's  absence,  in  1781,  the 
partisan  bands  had  now  added  twenty-six  more  engagements 
to  the  same  number  they  had  fought  in  1780.  Sumter 
with  his  rough  riders  had  raided  around  Lord  Rawdon's 
position  at  Camden,  had  attacked  Fort  Granby  and  the 
post  at  Thomson's  plantation,  and  taken  a  large  convoy  and 
train  on  its  way  thither,  and  had  taken  Orangeburgh.  He 
had  thus  penetrated  between  Camden  and  Ninety  Six,  had 
broken  in  upon  Lord  Rawdon's  communications,  and  com- 
pleting the  circle,  had  ended  his  campaign  in  an  affair  at 
the  Waxhaws  from  which  point  he  had  started.  In  the 
same  time  Marion  had  been  particularly  busy,  and  had 
done  some  of  his  most  brilliant  work.  He  successfully 
baffled  the  concerted  movements  of  Watson,  Doyle,  and 
McLeroth  directed  by  Lord  Rawdon  to  crush  him.  He 
had  fought  with  more  or  less  success  the  affairs  of  Wiboo 
Swamp,  Mount  Hope,  Black  River,  Sampit  Bridge,  Snow 
Island,  and  Witherspoon's  Ferry.  He  had  sent  Harden 
with  a  part  of  his  command  across  the  country  to  the  lower 
part  of  the  State,  where  Harden  with  brilliant  success  had 
carried  the  war  into  the  rice  fields,  and  taken  post  after 
post  where  the  British  looked  not  for  an  enemy.  The 
partisan  bands  had  thus  again  prepared  the  way  for  the 
return  of  the  Continental  army. 

General  Greene  having  followed  Lord  Cornwallis  to 
Ramsay's  Mill,  where  his  lordship  changed  the  direction 
of  his  retreat,  and  from  the  road  to  South  Carolina  to  that 


724  HISTORY   OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA 

to  Wilmington,  Greene  now  made  the  movement  upon 
which  his  reputation  as  a  military  leader  has  in  great 
measure  been  built.  But  it  has  clearly  appeared,  as  we 
think,  that  not  only  did  General  Greene  not  originate  the 
plan,  but  that  he  never  cordially  approved  it.  He  com- 
plained to  Colonel  Lee  that  he  had  been  misled  by  him 
in  adopting  it.  Preparatory  to  his  movement  into  South 
Carolina,  he  writes  to  Sumter  to  join  him  when  he  reached 
the  State.  He  calls  upon  Sumter  for  reenforcements,  as 
if  Sumter  had  a  regularly  organized  body  of  militia  at  his 
command,  which  he  could  bring  out  at  any  time  if  he 
chose.  He  misreads  Sumter's  plain  reply,  and  lays  up 
against  him  a  lasting  complaint  that  he  had  failed  at  this 
time  to  meet  him  with  one  thousand  men  independently  of 
Marion's  followers.  He  marches  to  attack  Lord  Rawdon, 
who,  taking  the  initiative,  moves  out  from  Camden,  meets, 
attacks,  and  defeats  him  at  Hobkirk's  Hill.  Upon  this 
defeat  he  determines  again  to  abandon  the  State,  and  is 
only  deterred  from  doing  so  by  learning  that  Lord  Rawdon, 
notwithstanding  his  victory,  had  evacuated  Camden  and 
was  on  his  retreat  towards  Charlestown. 

It  was  Sumter's,  Marion's,  and  Harden's  work  during 
Greene's  absence  from  the  State  that  had  compelled  Rawdon 
to  fall  back.  At  Nelson's  Ferry  his  lordship  was  met  by 
Colonel  Balfour,  the  commander  at  Charlestown,  with  the 
report  that  the  whole  country  was  once  more  in  rebellion, 
and  the  provincial  troops  in  the  city  in  mutiny.  In  the 
meanwhile  Sumter,  Marion,  and  Lee  had  been  busy  again 
in  Lord  Rawdon's  rear.  Orangeburgh,  Fort  Motte,  and 
Granby  had  been  taken,  and  Sumter  had  ridden  with  his 
men  to  within  fifty  miles  of  Charlestown ;  he  had  scoured 
the  country,  capturing  horses  and  securing  all  the  means 
of  transportation  in  the  way.  Now  was  the  time,  he 
urged  upon  Greene,  to  strike  a  decisive  blow.      He  urged 


IN    THE    REVOLUTION  725 

him  to  call  in  all  his  forces,  and,  uniting  tliem  in  one,  to 
fall  upon  Rawdon's  retreating  army.  True  Lord  Rawdon 
had  not  many  days  before  defeated  him  at  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
but  the  prestige  of  that  success  had  been  entirely  lost  by 
his  lordship's  retreat,  and  by  Balfour's  discouraging  reports 
of  the  rising  of  the  people  of  the  Low-Country.  But 
Greene  preferred  to  follow  the  old  rule,  never  to  leave  a 
fortress  in  the  rear,  and  turned  aside  to  take  the  fort  at 
Ninety  Six,  instead  of  pressing  on  after  Rawdon.  There 
he  was  not  only  detained  for  three  whole  weeks  of  the 
most  precious  time,  but  was  repulsed,  and  obliged  to  raise 
the  siege.  While  he  lay  before  the  post  at  Ninety  Six, 
accident  brought  in  British  reenforcements,  Rawdon  was 
saved,  and  the  country  which  the  partisan  bands  had 
rescued  from  British  control  was  again  in  their  posses- 
sion. 

Pickens  and  Lee  had,  however,  in  the  meanwhile,  taken 
Augusta,  and  Rawdon,  finding  himself  unable  to  hold 
Ninety  Six,  abandoned  it  as  it  would  have  been  abandoned 
before  had  not  Greene's  investure  prevented  the  receipt  by 
Colonel  Cruger,  the  commandant,  of  Rawdon's  order  for 
the  purpose.  Then,  too  late,  Greene  had  given  Sumter 
leave  with  Lee  and  all  the  partisan  bands  to  make  a  dash 
towards  Charlestown,  to  drive  into  its  immediate  vicinity  the 
British  outlying  forces.  The  expedition  was  well  planned, 
and  its  result  brilliant  in  many  of  its  details,  but  not  as 
fully  successful  as  it  might  have  been  had  it  not  been  for 
the  jealousies  of  its  leaders.  Wade  Hampton  and  Lee 
had  indeed  reached  the  very  gates  of  the  town,  and  killed, 
wounded,  and  captured  the  guards  at  the  post  but  four 
miles  from  the  city.  The  battle  of  Quinby  Bridge  had 
been  fought,  and  fought  not  altogether  unsuccessfully, 
but  its  complete  success  had  not  been  attained  because  of 
the  want  of  a  cordial  cooperation  of  the  various   bands 


726  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

composing  Sumter's  command,  especially  by  the  want  of 
Lee's  usual  zeal  and  activity. 

In  the  meanwhile,  a  general  exchange  of  prisoners  had 
taken  place,  under  which  the  exiles  at  St.  Augustine,  the 
original  leaders  in  the  Revolution,  had  been  released,  but 
forbidden  to  return  to  the  State,  and  their  families 
banished  from  Charlestown.  Contemporaneously  therewith 
had  occurred  the  capture  and  tragic  death  of  Colonel  Isaac 
Hayne. 

Upon  the  advance  of  Lord  Cornwallis  in  January,  and 
the  abandonment  of  the  State  by  General  Greene,  Governor 
Rutledge,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  gone  to  Philadelphia, 
where  he  remained  for  some  months,  endeavoring  to  obtain 
assistance  from  Congress.  As  most  of  the  State  had  now 
been  recovered,  he  had  returned,  bringing  with  him  some 
few  necessaries,  medical  stores,  etc.,  but  nothing  more. 
Establishing  himself  at  Camden,  he  began,  under  the  great 
powers  with  which  he  was  invested,  to  arrange  for  the 
restoration  of  some  form  of  civil  government  and  the  reor- 
ganization of  the  militia  in  the  recovered  territory.  For 
this  purpose  he  had  issued  the  proclamation  for  the  election 
and  convening  of  a  General  Assembly  we  have  discussed. 
We  have  seen  the  work  of  the  body  thus  convened  —  the 
Jacksonborough  Assembly,  as  it  was  called — presenting  the 
singular  phenomenon  of  the  most  unwise  and  unjust  legis- 
lation enacted  by  one  of  the  most  distinguished  bodies  that 
ever  sat  in  this  or  any  other  State  of  the  Union.  Governor 
Rutledge's  reorganization  of  the  militia  resulted  in  the  loss 
to  the  service  of  both  Sumter  and  Harden. 

The  battle  which  should  have  been  fought  in  ^lay,  while 
the  British  were  in  consternation  at  the  numerous  successes 
of  the  partisan  bands  and  the  rising  of  the  people,  and 
before  the  arrival  of  the  fleet  wdth  reenforcements  from 
Ireland,  was  now  to  take  place  —  the  last  pitched  battle  of 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  727 

the  Revolution  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  last  except  that 
of  Yoiktown  in  the  United  States.  It  was  foucrht,  and  both 
sides  claimed  the  victory;  but  Greene  retired  from  the 
field,  while  Colonel  Stuart,  who  commanded  the  British 
force,  held  it  for  the  night,  but  was  obliged  to  abandon  it 
the  next  day  and  to  fall  back  to  Monck's  Corner.  jMuch 
blood  was  still  to  be  shed  in  South  Carolina,  and  many 
dreadful  scenes  between  Whigs  and  Tories  were  to  be 
enacted ;  but  none  of  these  in  any  appreciable  degree 
affected  the  situation  of  the  contending  parties.  It  is 
curious  that,  while  the  British  were  generally  successful  in 
the  affairs  and  engagements  in  1782,  the  general  result  was 
to  drive  in  and  circumscribe  their  forces  into  narrow  and 
still  narrower  limits. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  the  persistent  hostility  of 
Greene  and  Lee  to  Sumter  ;  it  is  still  more  so  to  understand 
the  unwillingness  of  Marion  to  submit  to  his  command, 
or  even  to  cooperate  with  him,  though  appealed  to  by 
Governor  Rutledge  upon  the  subject;  but  most  of  all  we 
are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  manifest  coolness  of  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  himself  to  one  who,  in  the  darkest  hour  of 
his  country,  had  raised  its  fallen  flag  and  stemmed  tlie  tide 
of  conquest,  and  whom  he,  Rutledge  himself,  had  put  in 
command  of  all  the  militia.  We  can  understand  to  some 
extent  the  jealousy  of  Greene  and  of  Lee  of  the  fame 
which  had  already  begun  to  attacli  to  Sumter's  name  ;  we 
can,  with  regret,  understand  that  Marion  may  liave  indulged 
somewhat  the  same  sentiment,  though  it  was  so  unlike  his 
character  in  every  respect;  but  we  cannot  refrain  from 
asking  ourselves  where  was  the  occasion  of  any  such  mo- 
tive on  the  part  of  John  Rutledge  ?  And  yet,  when  at 
the  instance  of  Greene  he  discriminated  between  Sumter's 
and  Marion's  men  in  favor  of  the  latter,  and  practically 
broke  up  Sumter's  command,  he  must  have  contemplated 


728  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

Sumter's  resentment  and  resignation,  and  determined  upon 
the  course  at  the  risk  of  losing  his  services.  There  is  in 
this  strong  inference  that  there  must  have  been  in  Sumter's 
conduct  something  calling  for  such  action,  and  yet,  as  we 
remember,  it  was  but  a  few  weeks  before  that  the  governor 
had  assured  Sumter  that  he  had  heard  nothing  to  his  dis- 
paragement, and  that  should  he  do  so,  in  justice  to  his  merits 
and  services,  he  would  most  certainly  suspend  judgment 
until  he  could  hear  from  him  in  the  matter.  Reading  the 
correspondence  between  Greene  and  Sumter  alone,  no  one 
would  imagine  that  there  was  the  least  difference  or  unkind 
feeling  between  them.  Greene  makes  no  complaint  to 
Sumter  of  his  conduct,  and  upon  occasions  is  most  flatter- 
ing to  him ;  Sumter  is  most  assiduous  in  his  letters  to  Greene, 
writing  not  only  almost  daily,  but  at  times  repeatedly  in  the 
same  day ;  nor  in  all  these  letters  of  his  can  we  find  a  suspicion 
upon  his  part  of  the  want  of  the  most  entire  confidence  in 
him  on  the  part  of  his  commander ;  and  yet  we  have  the 
contemporaneous  correspondence  between  Greene  and  Lee, 
carried  on  in  part  in  cipher,  in  which  they  join  in  speaking 
of  Sumter  in  the  most  disparaging  manner,  and  heaping 
upon  him  the  responsibility  and  blame  for  all  the  failures 
of  the  campaign.  Is  it  any  wonder  that,  in  after  life, 
when  he  came  to  know  the  truth,  Sumter  should  enter- 
tain the  deepest  resentment  against  Greene,  who,  he 
learned,  had  to  others  belittled  and  misrepresented  all  he 
had  done,  had  intrigued  for  his  removal,  and  finally  driven 
him  from  the  field? 

The  Jacksonborough  Assembly,  however  unwise  in  its 
enactments  and  unjust  to  the  Loyalists,  was  most  gen- 
erous to  General  Greene.  With  Sumter  and  Marion 
sitting  in  the  Senate,  and  all  the  other  partisan  lead- 
ers in  one  or  other  House  of  the  body,  while  nothing 
was  said  or  done  for  Moultrie,  Sumter,  Marion,  or  Pickens, 


IN  THE  REVOLUTION  729 

honors  were  heaped  upon  Greene  with  material  and 
pecuniary  rewards.  These  he  accepted  as  due  him  of 
right.  He  took  the  plantation — "Boone's  Barony,"  as 
it  was  called  —  and  the  negroes  and  the  money,  and  turned 
upon  the  State  which  bestowed  them.  The  British  fleet 
had  scarcely  crossed  the  bar  of  Charlestown  harbor,  reliev- 
ing him  of  further  hostilities,  when  he  turned  his  guns 
upon  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  as  if  he  was  their 
conqueror  and  they  his  subjects.  In  a  State  with  a  civil 
government  fully  established,  and  the  people  ready  to  do 
what  they  could  to  support  his  army,  —  the  whole  burden 
of  which  was  left  upon  them  without  assistance  from  other 
States,  —  an  army  few  of  whom  had  borne  any  part  in  the 
rescue  of  the  State  from  the  British,  most  of  whom  had 
come  into  South  Carolina  only  when  the  fighting  was 
over,  and  there  to  mutiny !  he  claimed  the  right  to  im- 
press as  if  in  a  hostile  territory.  He  needlessly  offended 
the  people  by  setting  up  with  a  parade  of  knowledge  of 
international  law  the  far-fetched  doctrine  of  2^ostliminy^ 
that  his  officers  might  indulge  their  fancy  as  horsemen 
by  retaining  the  high-bred  animals  recaptured  from  the 
enemy,  —  an  exercise  of  mere  arbitrary  power  certain  to 
give  great  offence,  and  for  which  nothing  was  to  be 
attained  in  comparison  with  the  injury  it  woukl  inflict 
upon  the  sentiment  of  his  people.  From  the  needless 
impressment  of  such  horses  in  Virginia,  Greene  and  the 
Continental  army  were  at  this  time  in  the  greatest  un- 
popularity in  that  State.  Then,  in  the  controversy  with 
Governor  Guerard  over  the  flag  from  Governor  Tonyn 
of  Florida,  whatever  may  have  been  the  merits  of  the 
question  involved,  General  Greene's  conduct  was  not  only 
undignified  and  petulant,  but  unwise  and  most  unfortunate 
in  the  impression  which  it  left  upon  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  the  State. 


730  HisToiiY  OF  SOUTH  caiioli:n^a 

General  Greene's  whole  conduct  in  South  Carolma  was, 
indeed,  most  unfortunate  in  its  influence  upon  the  future 
relations  of  the  State  to  the  general  government.  To  the 
minds  of  many  his  purpose  seemed  to  have  been  scarcely 
less  to  put  down  State  pride  and  State  assertion,  than  to 
overthrow  British  rule.  It  was  not  then  known,  it  is  true, 
how  in  his  private  correspondence,  with  persons  of  influence 
near  Congress,  he  was  belittling  and  sneering  at  the  conduct 
of  her  heroes,  while  to  them  he  was  writing  most  flatter- 
ing letters  ;  but  his  flattery  could  scarcely  conceal  his  real 
unfriendliness  to  them  and  to  their  followers,  whom  he 
described  as  serving  more  for  plunder  than  from  the  love  of 
liberty.  It  did  not  escape  observation  that,  when  he  made 
triumphal  entry  into  the  city  upon  its  evacuation  by  the 
British,  no  State  officer  had  been  called  upon  to  be  present, 
though  Marion  and  all  his  officers  were  within  reach ;  nor 
was  Wade  Hampton  — who  the  year  before  had  cut  his  way 
to  the  very  gates  of  the  town  —  beyond  call.  The  only 
officer  of  South  Carolina  whom  he  allowed  to  accompany 
him  was  Moultrie,  who  was  in  the  Continental  line,  and 
who,  however  brilliant  had  been  his  career  in  the  earlier 
days  of  the  war,  had  been  a  prisoner  during  the  occupation 
of  the  city  by  the  British,  and  thus  had  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  recovery  of  the  State.  The  grand  entry  of  the 
recovered  town  was  made  by  General  Wayne  and  his 
mutinous  troops  from  Pennsylvania,  who  had  fought  no 
battle  in  South  Carolina.  Then,  assuming  a  grand  air  of 
importance,  superiority,  and  patronage,  and  in  a  manner 
somewhat  at  least  as  that  of  a  dictator,  he  assumes  to 
address  the  General  Assembly  upon  matters  under  their 
consideration  with  which  he  had  no  concern.  In  the 
issue  with  Governor  Guerard,  he  defies  the  chief  magistrate 
of  the  State  and  contemptuously  overrides  her  statutes. 

It  is  true  that  there  were  those  of  the  State  who  sus- 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  731 

tained  and  upheld  General  Greene  in  these,  as  in  all  other 
matters,  for  there  were  already  the  germs  of  the  Federal 
party  forming  in  tlie  Continental  line,  soon  to  develop  into 
the  Cincinnati  Society,  and  thence  into  that  political  organi- 
zation, and  in  the  debates  of  Congress  ten  and  twelve  years 
later  (1792-94),  upon  the  question  of  the  relief  of  Greene's 
estate  from  embarrassment,  growing  out  of  the  Banks 
contracts,  we  shall  find  the  delegates  for  South  Carolina 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  dividing  upon  that  line, 
the  Federalists,  Robert  Barnwell,  Robert  Goodloe  Harper, 
and  William  Loughton  Smith  supporting  the  bills  for 
relief,  while  the  Republicans,  Sumter,  Hampton,  and  Winn 
oppose  them.  These  votes,  too,  it  will  be  observed,  divide 
also  locally.  The  Low-County  representatives  uphold 
Greene's  course,  while  those  of  the  Up-Country  condemn 
it.  It  will  be  further  observed  that  it  is  Sumter  and  his 
old  leaders  in  the  field,  Hampton  and  Winn,  that  in  Con- 
gress resist  the  claims  of  Greene's  estates  as  growing  out 
of  his  own  wrong ;  and  so  it  was  that  the  Republican  or 
Democratic  party  in  South  Carolina  gathered  around 
Sumter  and  his  leaders,  as  did  the  Federalists  around 
the  Continental  officers.  It  is  most  interesting  again  to 
observe,  if  we  shall  look,  that  in  the  votes  in  the  State 
Convention  which  subsequently  adopted  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  the  same  lines  are  generally  followed. 
The  Federalists,  the  members  of  the  old  Continental 
Congress,  the  original  movers  in  the  Revolution,  the 
St.  Augustine  exiles,  under  the  Rutledges,  the  Pinckneys, 
and  Gadsden,  who  advocated  its  adoption,  coming  almost 
entirely  from  the  Low-Country;  while  the  heroes  from  the 
Up-Country,  Sumter  and  his  old  followers.  Hill  and  Lacey, 
the  three  Hamptons  (Wade,  Richard,  and  John),  Taylor, 
Brandon,  Thomas,  and  Butler,  were  the  Republicans  who 
opposed  the  adoption  of  that  instrument  and  carried  with 


732  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

them  fifty-two  out  of  the  seventy-three  votes  in  the  con- 
vention against  its  adoption.  The  vote  was  almost  solidly 
the  upper  country  under  Sumter  against  the  lower  under 
the  Continentals.  General  Greene's  conduct,  especially 
his  course  in  regard  to  Sumter,  had  much,  very  much,  to 
do  with  the  formation  of  parties  in  the  State. 

It  has  been  said  that  however  true  it  is  that  individuals 
in  South  Carolina  took  an  early  and  a  noble  stand  against 
the  oppressive  measures  of  the  British  ministry,  that 
though  it  is  equally  true  that  South  Carolina  was  the 
first  of  the  thirteen  States  to  form  an  independent  con- 
stitution, and  that  she  overpaid  her  proportion  of  expendi- 
tures of  the  war  in  the  sum  of  11,205,978,  that  though  it 
is  also  true  that  she  sent  some  gallant  Whigs  to  the  field, 
and  several  wise  ones  to  the  council,  that  statistics  show, 
nevertheless,  that  she  failed  far  in  furnishing  men  for  the 
cause ;  and  that  it  will  not  do  in  answer  to  this  charge  to 
point  to  the  many  battle-fields  in  the  State ;  that  the  exact 
question  is  not  where  were  the  battle-grounds  of  the  Revo- 
lution, but  what  was  the  portion  of  men  each  of  the  thir- 
teen States  supplied  for  the  contest  ?i  We  have  taken 
occasion  in  a  preceding  volume  to  show  how  fallacious 
and  impossible  are  the  figures  given  in  Knox's  Report  to 
Congress  in  1790,  upon  the  authority  of  which  this  criti- 
cism is  based,  especially  as  the  same  are  amplified  by  the 
author  who  makes  it.  We  have  pointed  out  that,  even  in 
the  case  of  South  Carolina  itself,  the  population  could  not 
have  furnished  the  number  of  men  she  is  credited  with, 
still  less  a  greater  number ;  and  we  then  asked  the  perti- 
nent question  which  we  venture  again  to  repeat,  viz.:  If 
so  be  that  there  were  so  many  Americans  in  the  field, 
where  did  they  fight,  and  why  did  they  not  drive  the 
British  from  the  continent  without  waiting  for  the  as- 
1  The  American  Loyalists,  by  Lorenzo  Sabine,  30,  31. 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  733 

sistance  of  the  French?^  But  the  question  recurs:  Is  it 
true  that  South  Carolina  failed  to  furnish  her  portion  of 
men  to  the  cause  of  freedom  and  independence  ?  Is  it  or 
is  it  not  a  fact  that,  while  her  territory  was  the  battle- 
field of  the  struggle  during  its  last  three  years,  her 
sons  took  but  little  part  in  the  war  that  was  waged  upon 
her  soil  ?  This  charge,  so  grave,  is  not  to  be  answered  by 
indignant  denial,  however  natural  and  true  such  denial 
might  be.  It  must  be  answered,  if  it  is  to  be  effectively, 
by  the  record.  But  here  her  historians  find  themselves 
in  difficulty.  For,  as  we  have  had  occasion  so  often  be- 
fore to  observe,  the  peculiarity  of  the  condition  of  affairs 
in  the  State  during  this  time  precluded  contemporaneous 
record  of  those  who  followed  her  partisan  leaders.  As 
there  was  no  government  in  the  State  outside  of  the  mili- 
tary rule  of  the  British  within  the  lines  held  for  a  time 
securely  by  them,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  militia 
in  the  American  service  until  the  reorganization  of  the 
government  by  Governor  Rutledge  in  the  fall  of  1781. 
Hence  there  were  no  rolls.  The  men  who  did  the 
fighting  in  South  Carolina  under  Sumter,  Marion,  and 
Pickens  were  purely  volunteers,  partisan  soldiers  who 
came  and  went,  and  fought  as  the  occasion  demanded, 
without  the  prospect  or  hope  of  pay  or  reward.  It  is 
true  that  in  years  afterwards  rolls  were  made  upon  which 
a  grateful  State  issued  pensions  and  rewards,  and  these 
rolls  may  yet  be  found  among  miscellaneous  records  which 
were  saved  when  the  capital  of  the  State  was  burned  in 
1865,  but  which  have  not  yet  been  arranged,  and  remain 
in  a  confused  mass  in  a  room  in  the  State-House.  But  as 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  case  there  were  no  field  re- 
turns made  at  the  time  of  the  severest  fighting,  there  being 
no  government  to  receive  them.  South  Carolina  never  can 
^History  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Bevolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  289-300. 


734  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

show  by  record  the  exact  number  of  her  sons  who  took 
part  in  the  struggle,  nor  even  approximately  so.  But 
this  her  historians  can  safely  say,  that,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  warfare  that  existed  in  her  borders,  there 
were  few  men  living  who  did  not  serve  at  one  time  or 
another  upon  one  side  or  the  other  in  the  great  contest. 
It  was  a  time  in  which  there  was  no  such  thing  as  neu- 
trality, nor  place  in  which  there  was  a  spot  for  safety. 

But  while  her  historians  cannot  find  militia  rolls  to  swell 
the  numbers  of  those  who  rendered  services  important  or 
trifling  as  the  case  may  be,  they  can  point  to  the  list  of 
battles,  actions,  and  engagements  which  took  place  in  South 
Carolina,  which,  if  analyzed,  will  answer  most  emphatically 
the  question  which  has  been  asked. 

From  a  carefully  prepared  Table,  which  appears  as  an 
appendix  to  this  volume,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  are  re- 
corded one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  battles,  actions,  and  en- 
gagements which  took  place  in  the  State.  Doubtless  some 
of  these  Avere  very  small  affairs,  scarcely  more  than  skir- 
mishes, but  the  licit  contains  no  smaller  affairs  than  are  to  be 
found  in  the  list  of  battles  which  took  place  in  other  States;^ 
it  enumerates  as  but  one  the  siege  of  Charlestown,  which 
lasted  fifty-three  days,  and  included  several  bloody  actions, 
and  as  but  one  each  also  the  sieges  of  Forts  Watson,  Granby, 
and  Ninety  Six,  each  of  which  occupied  several  days  in 
its  operations.  If  we  analyze  this  table  we  shall  see  that 
in  the  first  two  years  of  the  war,  1775-76,  there  were  nine 

1  See  Chronological  List  of  Battles,  Actions,  etc.,  appended  to  Heitman's 
Historical  Register  of  the  Continental  A  rmy,  1775-1783.  This  list  analyzed 
gives  the  number  of  battles  in  the  respective  States  as  follows :  New  York 
90,  South  Carolina  54,  New  Jersey  34,  Georgia  24,  North  Carolina  21, 
Massachusetts  15,  Canada  15,  Connecticut  14,  Virginia  14,  Rhode  Island  5, 
Pennsylvania  3,  Delaware  3,  Indiana  3,  Vermont  2,  Maine  1,  Florida  1, 
Kentucky  1,  Chesapeake  1,  Lake  Ontario  1,  Nova  Scotia  1,  elsewhere  3  — 
in  all  312. 


'"=** 


IX  THE   llEVOLUTION  735 

battles  in  South  Carolina,  —  one,  the  great  victory  of  Fort 
Moultrie,  in  which  none  but  Carolinians,  North  and  South, 
took  part,  nor  any  blood  but  that  of  South  Carolina  was 
shed.  In  the  other  eight  none  but  South  Carolinians 
fought  for  the  American  cause.  For  three  years  there 
were  no  military  operations  in  South  Carolina,  but  her 
Continentals  were  wasted  in  a  fruitless  expedition  to 
Florida  in  1778.  In  1779,  when  the  war  turned  south- 
ward, there  were  nine  affairs  in  South  Carolina,  and  in 
these  none  but  her  own  Continentals  and  militia  took 
part.  In  a  preceding  volume,  we  have  shown  that  in 
1780  there  had  been  thirtj^-four  engagements  in  the  State, 
in  eight  of  which  Continental  troops  had  taken  part,  and 
in  the  remaining  twenty-six  only  partisan  bands.^  To  the 
twenty-six  should  be  added  two  in  the  early  affairs  of 
Beckham's  Old  Field  and  Mobley  Meeting-house  (omitted 
in  that  list  because  of  the  want  of  any  account  of  casualties 
in  either  of  them  on  either  side).  In  four  of  these  partisan 
affairs,  i.e.  Gowen's  Old  Fort,  Flat  Rock,  Hanging  Rock,  and 
Wahub's  Plantation,  North  Carolinians  only  were  engaged ; 
and  in  the  battle  of  Camden  there  were  no  South  Carolina 
troops  present ;  in  nine  other  partisan  conflicts  there  were 
men  from  the  three  States  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia ;  in  twenty-two  there  were  none  but  South  Caro- 
linians. From  the  advent  of  Greene  to  the  end  of  the  war, 
i.e.  daring  the  years  1781-82,  it  will  be  seen  by  the  table 
appended  that  there  were  eighty-three  battles,  etc.,  fought, 
and  that  in  these  the  Continentals  from  other  Southern 
States,  under  Greene  alone,  took  part  in  nine ;  that  South 
Carolinians  took  part  with  these  Continentals  in  ten,  and 
that  they  fought  sixty-four  without  assistance  from  any  one 
coming  from  beyond  the  borders  of  the  State.  To  recapitulate, 
then,  of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  battles,  actions, 

1  History  of  So.  Ca.  in  the  Revolution,  1775-80  (McCrady),  850-853. 


736  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH  CAROLINA 

and  engagements,  between  the  British  and  Tories  and 
Indians  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  American  Whigs  on  the 
other,  which  took  place  in  South  Carolina  during  the 
Revolution,  one  hundred  and  three  were  fought  by  South 
Carolinians  alone,  in  twenty  others  South  Carolinians 
took  part  with  troops  from  other  States,  making  in  all  one 
hundred  and  twenty -three  battles  in  which  South  Carolin- 
ians fought,  within  the  borders  of  their  State,  for  the  liber- 
ties of  America;  leaving  but  fourteen  in  which  troops 
from  other  States  fought  within  the  same  without  her 
assistance.  Besides  the  battles  fought  in  their  own  State, 
South  Carolinians  fought  twice  at  Savannah  and  twice  at 
Augusta.  They  were  with  Howe  when  he  was  defeated 
by  Colonel  Campbell  at  Savannah  in  December,  1778,  and 
bore  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  siege  of  that  place  by  Lin- 
coln and  D'Estaing  in  1779.  They  took  part  with  Clarke 
and  McCall  at  the  first  siege  of  Augusta  in  1780,  and 
under  Pickens  and  Lee  in  the  second  in  1781.  They 
fought  and  pursued  the  Indians  over  the  borders  of  North 
Carolina  and  Georgia.  A  few  of  them  under  Pickens  and 
Lee  were  with  Greene  in  his  North  Carolina  campaign. 
Is  not  this  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  question  as  to  the 
proportion  of  men  which  she  furnished  to  the  general 
cause?     Can  any  State  show  better? 

The  condition  of  affairs  in  South  Carolina  was  without 
parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Revolution.  No  other  State 
was  so  completely  overrun  by  British  forces.  There  was 
no  part  of  her  territory,  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea- 
board, which  was  not  trod  by  hostile  forces,  no  ford  nor 
ferry  that  was  not  crossed  by  armed  men  in  pursuit  or 
retreat,  no  swamp  that  was  not  cover  to  lurking  foes.  No 
other  State  was  so  divided  upon  the  questions  at  issue,  and 
in  none  other  did  the  men  of  both  sides  so  generally  par- 
ticipate in  the  struggle.     In  none  other  were  Tory  organi- 


IN   THE   REVOLUTION  737 

zations  from  other  States  so  much  used  m  connection  with 
Royal  troops  to  subdue  American  Whigs,  thus  attempting 
to  carry  out  the  British  ministerial  plan  of  overcoming 
Americans  by  Americans.  While  South  Carolina  received 
but  little  assistance  from  any  State  but  North  Carolina, 
and  none  from  the  North,  her  territory  was  garrisoned 
by  Americans  serving  in  the  British  army  enlisted  from 
Connecticut,  from  New  York,  from  New  Jersey,  and 
from  Pennsylvania.  The  British  forces  at  King's  Moun- 
tain and  at  Ninety  Six  were  composed  entirely  of  provin- 
cials raised  in  Northern  States.  Northern  States  furnished 
also  several  excellent  Tory  officers  who  operated  with  the 
British  army  in  South  Carolina.  Among  these  were  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonels Turnbull  and  Cruger  and  Major  Sheridan 
of  New  York,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Allen  of  New  Jersey, 
and  two  brilliant  cavalry  leaders  from  Massachusetts, 
Major  John  Coffin  and  Colonel  Benjamin  Thompson,  after- 
wards Count  Rumford.  Pennsylvania,  on  the  other  hand, 
furnished  the  notorious  Huck  whose  career  was,  however, 
soon  ended.  Connecticut  sent  the  infamous  Dunlap,  and 
Maryland  the  robber  Maxwell.  In  no  other  State  was  the 
civil  government  set  up  by  the  Revolutionists  so  completely 
overthrown,  and  the  country  so  given  over  to  anarchy. 
The  citizens  of  no  other  State  suffered  exile  for  the 
American  cause  as  did  those  from  South  Carolina  at  St. 
Augustine.  In  other  States  the  militia  was  occasion- 
ally engaged  in  operations  with  the  Continental  forces, 
and  sometimes,  though  rarely  alone,  in  enterprises  against 
the  enemy.  The  complete  overthrow  of  all  civil  govern- 
ment in  South  Carolina,  rendering  the  employment  of 
militia  on  either  side  within  her  borders  impracticable, 
in  their  place  partisan  bands  were  organized  by  the  Whigs, 
upon  the  nucleus  of  the  old  militia  organizations,  and, 
practically  self-maintained  for  the  last  three  years  of  the 

VOL.  IV.  —  3  b 


788  HISTORY   OF   SOUTH   CAROLINA 

war,  again  and  again  upheld  the  struggle  while  there  was 
not  a  Continental  soldier  in  the  State.  The  names  of 
Sumter,  Marion,  and  Pickens  stand  out  in  the  history  and 
romance  of  the  United  States,  occupying  a  peculiar  and 
unique  position.  And  yet,  neither  they  nor  their  fol- 
lowers could,  for  the  brilliant  services  they  rendered, 
be  admitted  to  the  Cincinnati  Society.  In  no  other  State 
was  there  so  much  fio^hting  and  bloodshed.  No  State 
contributed  so  liberally  of  her  means  to  the  common 
cause  of  her  sister  States,  a  cause  which  was  not  origi- 
nally hers;  no  State,  we  venture  to  assert,  furnished  so 
many  men  in  proportion  to  her  population  in  the  actual 
warfare  which  ensued,  nor  so  few  upon  the  pension  rolls 
of  the  country  after  it  was  over.  More  than  a  hundred 
battle-fields  dot  the  map  of  South  Carolina  and  blazon  the 
glorious  struggle  of  her  people. 

We  may  be  permitted,  in  conclusion,  to  quote  again,  as 
we  have  before  done  in  a  former  volume,  the  tribute  of 
the  great  American  historian  to  the  conduct  of  the  people 
of  South  Carolina  when  practically  abandoned  by  Congress 
and  its  army. 

'"''Left  mainly  to  her  oivn  resources''  ^?ij^  Bancroft,  ^^  it 
was  throucjli  the  depths  of  ivretchedness,  that  her  sons  tvere 
to  bring  her  hack  to  her  place  in  the  republic,  after  suffering 
more  and  daring  more  and  achieving  more  than  the  men  of 
any  other  State'"' 


APPENDIX  A 

LIST  OF  THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  SOUTH  CAROLINA  LEGIS- 
LATURE ELECTED  IN  1781  UNDER  GOVERNOR  RUT- 
LEDGE'S  PROCLAMATION,!  WHICH  MET  IN  JACKSON- 
BOROUGH  IN  JANUARY,  1782.  COMMONLY  KNOWN  AS 
THE  JACKSONBOROUGH  ASSEMBLY. 


Parishes  of  St.  Philip  and  St. 
Michael,  Charlestown 

Senators 
Arthur  Middleton  and  Col.  Isaac 

Motte. 

^Representatives 

Thomas  Bee,  Adsenus  Burke, 
Richard  Beresford,  John  Blake, 
Edward  Darrell,  Nicholas  Eveleigh, 
John  Edwards,  Thomas  Grimball, 
Wm.  Hasell  Gibbes,  John  E.  Griaike, 
Thomas  Hey  ward,  Jr.,  Thomas  Jones, 
Henry  Laurens,  John  Laurens,  Will- 
iam Lee,  Alexander  Moultrie,  Rich- 
ard Lushington,  John  Neufville,  Jr., 
John  Owen,  Thomas  Pinckney,  Col. 
James  Postell,  John  Ernest  Poyas, 
Edward  Rutledge,  Davis  Ramsay, 
Hugh  Rutledge,  Jacob  Read,  Thomas 
Savage,  Daniel  St-jvens,  Anthony 
Toomer,  Charles  Warham. 

St.  Andrew's  Parish 
Sejiator 
Col.  William  Scott. 


Bextresentatives 
Peter  Bocquet,  Benjamin  Cattell, 
Thomas  0.  Elliott,  Richard  Hutson, 
Solomon  Milner,  John  Rutledge. 

Parish  of  St.  George,  Dorchesteb 

Senator 

Dr.  David  Oliphant. 

Eepresentatives 

Edward  Blake,  Gen.  Isaac  Huger, 
John  Mathews,  Captain  William 
Moultrie,  Jr.,  Charles  C.  Pinckney, 
Daniel  Stuart,  Dr.  Thomas  Tudor 
Tucker,  Thomas  Waring. 

Parish  of  St.  James,  Goose  Creek 

Senator 
William  Logan. 

Representatives 
John Baddeley,  Alexander Brough- 
ton,  Thomas  EUiott  (of  Wappoo), 
George  Elagg,  Ralph  Izard,  William 
Johnson. 


1  This  list  is  taken  from  the  diary  of  Josiah  Smith,  Jr.,  and  so  far  as  we 
know  such  a  list  is  not  to  be  obtained  elsewhere,  as  the  journals  of  this  legis- 
lature cannot  now  he  found. 

739 


740 


APPENDIX   A 


Parish  of  St.  John's,  Berkeley 
Senator 
Gen.  Francis  Marion. 

Representatives 
Alexander  Broughton,  John  Cor- 
des,     Gabriel     Gignilliat,     Richard 
Gough,  Thomas  Giles,  John  Frier- 
son. 

Parish  op  St.  James,  Santee 

Senator 
Richard  Withers. 

Representatives 
Henry    Hughes,    Mark    Huggins, 
Joseph  Legare,  Lewis  Miles,  Alex- 
ander McGregor,  Anthony  Simons. 

Christ  Church  Parish 
Senator 
Arnoldus  Vander  Horst. 

jRepresentatives 
John  Berwick,   Clement  Brown, 
John  Sandford  Dart,  William  Scott, 
Jr.,  John  Vander  Horst,  James  Van- 
der Horst. 

Parish  or  St.  Thomas  and  St.  Denis 
Senator 
Isaac  Harleston. 

Bepresentatives 

Joseph  Fogartie,  Hopson  Pinck- 
ney,  Thomas  Shubrick,  Benjamin 
Simons,  Robert  Quash,  Edward 
Weyman. 

St.  Stephen's  Parish 
Senator 
Joseph  Palmer. 


Representatives 
Col.    Hezekiah  Maham,   Thomas 
Cooper,  John  Palmer,  Peter  Sinkler, 
James  Sinkler,  Benjamin  Walker. 

St.  Paul's  Parish 

Senator 
Joseph  Bee. 

Representatives 
Thomas  Bee,  Thomas  Ferguson, 
George  Livingston,  Christopher  Pe- 
ters, Joseph  Slann,  Morton  Wilkin- 
son. 

St.  Bartholomew's  Parish 

Senator 
John  Lloyd. 

Representatives 
Joseph     Glover,     Sr.,     Edmund 
Hyrne,  James  Postell,  Jr.,  Richard 
Singleton,  William  Skirving,  John 
Ward. 

Prince  William's  Parish 
Senator 
Col.  William  Harden. 

Representatives 
Major  William  Davis,  Dr.  Aaron 
Gillet,  Thomas   Hutson,  John  Mc- 
Pherson,    Capt.    Andrew    Postell, 
James  Smith. 

Parish  of  St.  Helena 

Senator 
Benjamin  Guerard. 

Representatives 
Pierce     Butler,     Glen    Drayton, 
Jacob  Guerard,  Thomas  Heyward, 
John  Kean,  Charles  C.  Pinckney. 


APPENDIX   A 


741 


St.  Peter's  Parish 
Senator 
Cornelius  Dupont. 

Bepresentatives 
Thomas  Cater,  Charles  Dupont, 
James  Moore,  John  Moore,  William 
Stafford,  Col.  James  Thompson. 

Parishes  of  Prince  George  and 
All  Saints 
Senator 
Col.  Hugh  Horry. 

PRINCE    GEORGE 

Bepresentatives 
Gen.  Christopher  Gadsden,   Col. 
Peter  Horry,  Major  William  Beni- 
son,  Capt.  Thomas  Mitchell. 

ALL    SAINTS 

Bepresentatives 
William  Alston,  Nathaniel  D  wight. 

Prince  Frederick's  Parish 

Senator 

Samuel  Smith. 

Bepresentatives 

Major  John  Baxter,  Major  John 
James,  Capt.  William  McCottry, 
Capt.  John  McCauley,  Col.  James 
Postell,  Thomas  Potter. 

St.  David's  Parish 

Senator 

William  Thomas. 

Representatives 

Col.  Lemuel  Benton,  Capt.  Dewitt, 
Capt.  Pledger,  William  Pegues, 
Capt.  Pegues,  Major  Thomas. 


Parishes  of  St.  Matthew  and 
Orange 

Senator 

Col.  William  Thomson. 

Bepresentatives 

Henry  Felder,  William  Mydelton, 
William  Reid,  Richard  A.  Rapley, 
John  A.  Truetlin. 

Saxe  Gotha  Election  District 
Senator 
William  Arthur. 

Bepresentatives 

Col.  Jonas  Beard,  Joseph  Culpep- 
per, Uriah  Goodwyn,  Wade  Hamp- 
ton, Richard  Hampton,  Dr.  Jacob 
Richmond. 

District  between  Broad  and 
Catawba  Rivers 

Senator 

Col.  Thomas  Taylor. 

Bepresentatives 

Major  Adair,  Col.  Hunter,  Joseph 
Kirkland,  William  Kirkland,  Major 
Lyle,  Col.  Edward  Lacey,  Major 
Miles,  Major  Pearson,  William 
Reeves,  Col.  Richard  Winn. 

Upper   or   Spartan  District  be- 
tween Broad  and  Saluda  Rivers 

Senator 

Simon  Berwick. 

Bepresentatives 

Col.  William  Henderson,  Col. 
Thomas  Brandon,  Samuel  McJun- 
kiu,  Col.  John  Thomas,  Jr. 


742 


APPENDIX   A 


Little   River   District  between 
Broad  and  Saluda  Rivers 
Senator 
Col.  Levi  Casey. 

Bepresentatives 
Benjamin  Kilgore, Montgom- 
ery, Dr.  Ross,  Capt.  Wild. 

Lower   District  between  Broad 
AND  Saluda  Rivers 
Senator 
Major  Gordon. 

Mepresentatives 
David    Glynn,   Michael    Leitner, 
George  Roof,  Philemon  Waters. 

Ninety  Six  Election  District 

Senator 
John  Lewis  Gervais. 

Bepresentatives 
Robert  Anderson,  Patrick  Cal- 
houn, John  Ewing  Colhoun,  Le  Roy 
Hammond,  James  Moore,  Hugh 
Middleton,  John  Murray,  Gen.  An- 
drew Pickens,  Arthur  Simkins. 

Camden  Election  District 
Senator 
General  Thomas  Sumter. 


Bepresentatives 
James  Bradley,  Samuel  Dunlap, 
Wood  Furman,  Capt.  Gordon,  John 
Gamble,  Col.  John  James,  Joseph 
Kershaw,  Joseph  Lee,  Richard 
Richardson,  William  Welch. 

New  Acquisition 
Senator 
Col.  Watson. 

Bepresentatives 
John  Fergus,  William  Hill,  Joseph 
Howe,  William  Howe,  David  Linch, 
John  McCaw,  Joseph  McKinney, 
John  Moffat,  John  Patton,  Frame 
Wood. 

District  between  the  Edisto  and 
Savannah  Rivers 
Senator 
Stephen  Smith. 

Bepresentatives 
John    Collins,    William    Dunbar, 
Robert  Lusk,  John  Parkinson,  Wil- 
liam Robison,  George  Robison. 

There  was  no  election  in  the  par- 
ish of  St.  John's,  Colleton,  as  the 
islands  composing  that  parish  were 
in  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 


APPENDIX  B 

TABLE  OF  BATTLES,  ACTIONS,  AND   ENGAGEMENTS  WHICI 

AMERICAN 


Battle  or  Action, 
etc. 


Sa- 


Jfaval  battle 
Ninety  Six 

Great  Cane  Brake 

Cherokee  Indian 
Town 

I'\)rt  Moultrie 

Lyndley's  Fort,  Ray 
burn's  Creek 

Essenecca 

Oconore 

Tomassy 

Heaufort 

Cherokee   Ford 
vannah  River 

Coosawhatchio 

Charlestown  (Pr6- 
vost) 

Stono 

(Jalley    fight,    Stono 
River 

Mathews's  Planta- 
tion (Stono) 

Capture     of     seven 
Britisli  vessels 

Schooner   Rattle- 
snake (Stono) 

Salkehatchie 

Pon  Pon 

Itantowle's 

Monck's  Corner 

Siege  of  Charlestown 

Lenud's  Ferry 

Beckham's  Did  Field 

Motley's  Meeting- 
house 

Buford'8  Massacre 

Williamson's  Planta- 
tion 

Brandon's  Camp 

Stallions 


Place 
(What  is  now) 


Charleston     Har- 
bor 
Abbeville  Co, 

Anderson  Co. 
Vnderson  Co. 

Charlest'n  Harb'r 
Laurens  Co. 

Anderson  Co. 
Oconee  Co. 
Oconee  Co. 
Beaufort  Co. 
Abbeville  Co. 

Beaufort  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 

Charleston  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 

Charleston  Co. 

Charleston  Co. 

Charleston  Co. 

Colleton  Co. 
Colleton  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 
Berkeley  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 

Berkeley  Co. 

Chester' Co. 
Fairfield  Co. 

Lancaster  Co. 
York  Co. 

Union  Co. 
York  Co. 


Date 


11  &  12  Nov, 

1775 

19  &  21  Nov, 
1775 

■22  Dec.  1775 
•26  June  1776 

23  June  1776 
15  July  1776 

I  Aug.  1776 
S  Aug.  1776 

II  Aug.  1770 
12  Feb. 1779 
14  Feb.  1779 

3  Mav  1779 

11  to '13  May 
1779 

20  June  1779 
June  1779 

June  1779 

June  1779 

June  1779 

ISMar.  17S0 
20  Mar.  1780 
27  Mar.  1780 

12  Apr.  1780 
Mar.,  Apr., 

Mav  1780 
18  Mav  1780 
May  1780 
May  1780 

29  May  1780 
12  July  1780 

Inly  1780 
July  1780 


Simon  Tufts 

Williamson 

Thomson 
McCall 

Moultrie 
Dovvnes 

Williamson 

Williamson 

Williamson 

Moultrie 

Anderson 

Laurens 
Moultrie 

Lincoln 
Pyne 

Mathews 

Hall  &  Tryon 

Fi-isby 

Lad son 

Washington 

Washington 

linger 

Lincoln 

White 

McLure 

Bratton 

Buford 
Bratton 

Brandon 
Brandon 


70 

562 

1300 
33 

6522 
150 

330 
640 
640 
300 


350 

2500 


1000 


12 
1 

63 

14 

17 

22 
16 

115 


113 


150 


1 


5683 


744 


APPENDIX  B 

OOK  PLACE  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA  DURING  THE  REVOLUTION 


(lian  chief 
(liiin  chief 
(i;;in  chief 
ii'liiier 


BKITISIT,   TORY,   OR   INDIAN 


1890 


2800 
190 


2400 
500 


60 


150 
13000 


700 
115 


26 


78 


189 


20 


la 


84 


130  shots  fired  ;  no  casualties 

Ninety  Six  besieged  by  Tories ;  siege  raised 

Tories  defeated 

First  complete  American  victory 


Several  Indians  killed 

See  Drayton's  3Iemoirs,  vol.  II,  845-351 

See  McCaU'8  ffist.  of  Georgia,  196,  197 

No  account  of  British  loss 
Prevost  lays  siege  to  Charleston 

One  of  the  hardest-fought  battles  of  the  war 
No  account  of  British  loss 

An  affair  in  which  most  of  Beaufort  com- 
pany were  killed  or  wounded 
No  account  of  casualties 

British  loss,  captain  and  greater  part  of  men 

Washington  and  Tarleton  first  appear 

Americans  surprised  and  routed 
Charleston  besieged  and  taken 

Americans  dispersed 
No  account  of  casualties.    First  uprising 


of  the  people 
,  Tories  routed  on  both  occasions 
Buford's  Virginia  reeriment  destroyed 
Huck  defeated  and  slain 

Brandon's  party  routed 
Tories  defeated 


746 


746 

APPENDIX   B 

AMEKICAN 

Battle  or  Action, 
etc. 

Place 

("What  is  now) 

Date 

§ 

1 

a 

1 

c 

-^1 
II 

tc 

1 

i 

c 
c 

1 

S 

81 

Cedar  Springs 

Spartanburg  Co. 

13  July  1780 

Thomas 

60 

32 

Gowen's  Old  Fort 

Spartanburg  Co. 

13  &  14  July 

1780 
16  July  1780 

Jones 

83 

McDowell's  Camp 

Spartanburg  Co. 

Hampton,  Ed. 

52 

8 

30 

38 

88 

84 

Flat  Rock 

Kershaw  Co. 

20  July  1780 

Davie 

80 

1 

3 

4 

4 

85 

Thicketty  Fort 

Spartanburg  Co. 

30  July  1780 

McDowell 

600 

6 

86 

Hunt's  Bluflf 

Darlington  Co. 

1  Aug.  1780 

Gillespie 

87 

Rocky  Mount 

Lancaster  Co. 

t  Aug.  1780 

Sumter 

380 

88 

Hanging  Rock 

Lancaster  Co. 

1  Aug.  1780 

Davie 

80 

89 

Hanging  Rock 

Lancaster  Co. 

6  Aug.  1780 

Sumter  & 
Da\ie 

300 

100 

100 

40 

Old  Iron  "Works  or 
2d  Cedar  Springs 

Spartanburg  Co. 

8  Aug.  1780 

Clarke  & 
Shelby 

600 

4 

20 

24 

24 

41 

Port's  Ferry 

"Williamsburg  Co. 

15  Aug.  1780 

Marion 

2o0 

2 

2 

2 

42 

VV  ateree 

Richland  Co. 

15  Aug.  1780 

Sumter 

700 

43 

Camden 

Kershaw  Co. 

16  Aug.  1780 

Gates 

3500 

800 

1270 

2070 

44 

Fishing  Creek 

Chester  Co. 

18  Aug.  1780 

Sumter 

700 

150 

310 

460 

45 

Musgrove's  Mills 

Laurens  Co. 

19  Aug.  1780 

Clarke  & 
Shelby 

200 

4 

9 

13 

13 

46 

N'elson's  Ferry 

Clarendon  Co. 

20  Aug.  1780 

Marion 

16 

1 

1 

2 

2 

47 

King's  Tree 

Williamsburg  Co. 

27  Aug.  1780 

Marion 

150 

30 

48 

Black  Mingo 

Williamsburg  Co. 

14  Sept.  1780 

Marion 

150 

50 

50 

49 

rarcote 

Williamsburg  Co. 

Sept.  1780 
7  Oct.  1780 

Marion 

400 

50 

King's  Mountain 

York  Co. 

Campbell 

910 

28 

62 

90 

90 

51 

Fishdam 

Chester  Co. 

9  Nov.  1780 

Sumter 

550 

1 

1 

2 

2 

52 

Blackstock 

Union  Co. 

20  Nov.  1780 

Sumter 

420 

1 

3 

4 

4 

53 

Kugeley's  Mills 

Kershaw  Co. 

4  Dec.  1780 

Washington 

W 

Long  Cane 

Abbeville  Co. 

11  Dec.  1780 

Clarke 

500 

14 

7 

21 

21 

55 

Hammond's  Store 

Ab'beville  Co. 

30  Dec.  1780 

Washington 

275 

56 

Williams's  Planta- 
tion 
Cowpens 

Newberry  Co. 

31  Dec.  1780 

Washington 

57 

Spartanburg  Co. 

16  Jan.  1781 

Morgan 

940 

11 

61 

72 

72 

58 

De  Peyster's  capture 
Sampit  Road, 
White's  Bridge 

Georgetown  Co. 

19  Jan.  1781 

Postell,  John 

28 

59 

Georgetown  Co. 

Jan. 1781 

Horry,  Peter 

60 

Georgetown 

Georgetown  Co. 

24  Jan. 1781 

Marion  &  Lee 

1 

2 

3 

8 

61 

Wadboo 

Berkeley  Co. 

24  Jan. 1781 

Postell,  Jas. 

62 

Monck's  Corner 

Berkeley  Co. 

24  Jan. 1781 

Postell,  John 

63 

Singleton's  Mill, 
Halfway  Swamp 

Clarendon  Co. 

Feb. 1781 

Marion 

64 

Fort  Granby 

Lexington  Co. 

19  Feb. 1781 

Sumter 

65 

Thomson's  Planta- 
tion 
Wright's  Bluff 

Orangeburg  Co. 

23  Feb.  1781 

Sumter 

100 

66 

Clarendon  Co. 

27  Feb.  1781 

Sumter 

18 

18 

67 

Mud  Lick 

Newberry  Co. 

2  Mar.  1781 

Roebuck 

150 

68 

Lynch's  Creek 
Wiboo  Swamp 

Kershaw  Co. 

6  Mar.  1781 

Sumter 

18 

1& 

69 

Clarendon  Co. 

6  Mar.  1781 

Marion 

250 

70 

Mount  Hope 

Williamsburg  Co. 

Mar.  1781 

Marion 

71 

Black  River 

Williamsburg  Co. 

Mar.  1781 

Marion 

72 

Sampit  Bridge 

Georgetown  Co. 

Mar.  1781 

Marion 

1 

73 

Snow  Island 

Marion  Co. 

Mar.  1781 

Marion 

7 

15 

22 

22 

74 

Witherspoon's 

Ferry 
Dutchman's  Creek 

Georgetown  Co, 

xMar.  1781 

Marion 

75 

Fairfield  Co. 

Mar.  1781 

18 

18 

86 

70 

Beattie's  Mill 

Abbeville  Co. 

24  Mar.  1781 

Pickens 

77 

Four  Holes 

Colleton  Co. 

7  Apr.  1781 

Harden 

100 

APPENDIX   B 


747 


BKITISH,  TORY,  OR  INDIAN 


i  1 

i  ^ 

En 

1 

1 
g 

o 

he 

2 

1 
£ 

ts 

< 

Irguson 

150 

Several  British  killed ;  rest  routed 

1 

1 

3 

4 

32 

36 

nes 

300 

8 

8 

f.rden 

150 

40 

»ioore 

94 

94 

94 

:ills 

100 

100 

100 

hrnbuU 

300 

12 

12 

'irden 

500 

50 

50 

'irden 

500 

200 

-rguson 

2000 

30 

30 

30 

liiiey 

Whole  body  of  Tories  routed ;  several  killed 

•  trey 

7 

100 

107 

prnwallis 

2239 

68 

245 

325 

11 

336 

lirleton 

360 

16 

16 

|nes 

500 

63 

90 

153 

TO 

223 

captain 

176 

176 

'emvss 

300 

15 

15 

30 

all 

60 

60 

yr.es 

26 

26 

erguson 

925 

119 

123 

242 

664 

906 

'emyss 

250 

20 

20 

arleton 

500 

92 

100 

192 

192 

npeley 

104 

104 

Hon 

450 

3 

3 

■)ry  officer 

250 

150 

40 

190 

^niingham,  R. 

Several    British    and    Tories    killed    and 
wounded 

nri.-ton 

1000 

60 

124 

184 

600 

784 

.  0  Peyster 

29 

29 

29 

:iiiiey 

Many    British    and    Tories    killed    and 
wounded 

ampbell 

Many  British  and  Tories  killed;  5  taken 
No  account  of  losses  on  either  side 
No  account  of  losses  on  either  side 

[CLeroth 
[tewell 

80 

13 

66 

79 

No  account  of  losses  on  either  side 
Sumter  invests,  but  relieved  by  Rawdon 

i 

Sumter  repulsed 

Total  rout  British  and  Tories 

'raser 

Vatson 

ITatson 

Vatson 

Vatson 

560 

20 

British  dispersed 
British  abandon  the  field 
Manv  British  killed 
Skirmish 

)oyle 

2 

2 

Doyle 

Sharp  fight ;  no  account  of  casualties 

Jrey 

3unlap 

34 

42 

76 

3arton 

26 

26 

748 


APPENDIX  B 


AMERICAN 

Battle  or  Action, 

Place 

Date 

'a 

I 
be 

1 

etc. 

(What  is  now) 

a 

s 

8 

1 

a 
s 
o 

l| 

c 

1 

1 

|i 

o 

W 

^ 

M 

§ 

< 

78 

Barton's  Post 

Colleton  Co. 

S  Apr.  1781 

Cooper 

1 

2 

3 

79 

Poeotaligo  Road 

Colleton  Co. 

8  Apr.  1781 

Cooper 

2 

1 

80 

Waxhaws  Church 

Lancaster  Co. 

9  Apr.  1781 

Sumter 

81 

Fort  Balfour,  Poeo- 
taligo 

Beaufort  Co. 

13  Apr.  1781 

Harden 

82 

Fort  Watson 

Clarendon  Co. 

15-23  Apr. 

1781 
Apr.  1781 

Marion  &  Lee 

380 

2 

6 

8 

83 

Mathews's  Bluff 

Edgefield  Co. 

McKoy 

84 

Wiggins's  Hill 

Barnwell  Co. 

Apr.  1781 

Harden 

7 

11 

18 

1 

1 

85 

Horner's  Corner 

Edgefield  Co. 

Apr,  1781 

Hammond 

86 

Hammond's  Mill 

Edgefield  Co. 

Apr.  1781 

Hammond 

87 

Hobkirk's  Hill 

Kershaw  Co. 

25  Apr.  1781 

Greene 

939 

19 

113 

132 

136 

26 

88 

Friday's  Ferry- 

Richland  Co. 

1  May  17S1 

Hampton,  W. 

89 

Bush  River 

Newberry  Co. 

May  1781 

Thomas 

90 

Camden,  Evacua- 
tion of 
Orangeburgh 

Kershaw  Co. 

10  May  1781 

Greene 

91 

Orangeburg  Co. 

11  May  1781 

Sumter 

500 

92 

Fort  Motte 

Orangeburg  Co. 

11  May  1781 

Marion  &  Lee 

380 

93 

Granby 

Lexington  Co. 

15  May  1781 

Sumter  &  Lee 

300 

94 

Beach  Island 

Aiken  Co. 

15  May  1781 

Clarke 

6 

6 

95 

Fort  Galphin 

Aiken  Co. 

21  May  1781 

Rudulph 

96 

Georgetown 

Georgetown  Co. 

5  June  1781 

Marion 

97 

Mydelton's   ambus- 
cade 
Ninety  Six 

Lexington  Co. 

June  17S1 

Mydelton 

150 

98 

Abbeville  Co. 

12  May  to  19 

Greene 

1000 

185 

June  1781 

99 

Eggleston's  capture 

Lexington  Co. 

8  July  1781 

Eggleston 

50 

100 
101 

Horse  Shoe 
Quarter  House 

Colleton  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 

8  July  1781 
15  July  1781 

Hayne 
Hampton,  W. 

14 

1 

1 

15 

102 

Wadboo 

Berkeley  Co. 

16  July  1781 

Sumter 

lOo 
104 

Quinby  Bridge 
Washington's  raid 

Berkeley  Co. 
Berkeley  Co. 

Julv  1781 
July  1781 

Sumter 
Washington 

700 

60 

105 

Cuningham's  raid 

Laurens  Co. 

1  Aug.  1781 

8 

8 

106 

Fork  of  Edisto 

Orangeburg  Co. 

Aug.  1781 

Rumph 

18 

18 

lOT 

Parker's  Ferry 

Colleton  Co. 

31  Aug.  1781 

Marion 

200 

108 

Charlestown  Road 

Berkeley  Co. 

31  Aug.  1781 

Cooper 

109 

Turkey  Creek 

Edgefield  Co. 

6  Sept.  1781 

10 

110 

Eutaw 

Berkeley  Co. 
Edgefield  Co, 

9  Sept.  1781 

Greene 

2098 

139 

370 

509 

8 

111 

Stevens's  Creek 

5  Oct.  1781 

Hammond 

8 

17 

25 

' 

112 

Vince's  Fort 

Barnwell  Co. 

25  Oct.  1781 

Vince 

113 

Cloud's  Creek 

Edgefield  Co. 

7  Nov.  1781 

Turner 

30 

28 

28 

114 

Hayes's  Station 

Laurens  Co. 

Nov.  1781 

Hayes 

18 

115 

Gowen's  Fort 

Greenville  Co. 

Nov.  1781 

116 

Moore's  surprise 

Orangeburg  Co. 

Nov.  1781 

Moore 

12 

117 

Fair  Lawn 

Berkeley  Co. 

27  Nov.  1781 

Shelby  & 
Maham 

380 

118 

R.  Hampton's  sur- 
prise . 
Dorchester 

Orangeburg  Co. 

Nov.  1781 

Hampton,  R. 

11 

119 

Berkeley  Co. 

1  Dec.  1781 

Hampton,  W. 

120 

Dorchester 

Berkeley  Co. 

29  Dec.  1781 

Armstrong 

,    7 

8 

121 

Videau's  Bridge 

Berkeley  Co. 

3  Jan. 1782     Richardson 

57 

20 

'  ' 

APPENDIX  B 


749 


BRITISn,  TORY,   OK  INDIAN 


s 

1 

1 

3 

Is 

8 

tp 

CO 

C 
O 

1 

S 

< 

35 
150 
91 

1 
1 

3 

7 

3 
2 

91 

7 
10 

91 

120 

120 

120 

670 

16 

16 

16 

900 

88 
IS 
3 

220 

12 

258 
IS 
15 

100 
150 
340 

4 

100 
150 
;340 

126 

100 
150 
340 

130 

550 

27 

5S 

85 

85 

60 

1 

45 
50 

45 
51 

700 

7 

38 

45 

100 

145 

2300 

82 

335 

417 

247 

664 

300 

1 

5 

6 

500 

80 

80 

500 

80 

350 

1 

1 

2 

2 

British  kill  and  wound  several 
Post  captured  by  Harden 

Post  captured  by  Marion  and  Lee 

Tory  party  dispersed 
Harden  defeated  by  Browne 
Post  captured  by  Hammond 
Company  of  Tories  captured 
Greene  defeated  by  Kawdon 


Fort  taken  by  Marion  and  Lee 
Fort  taken  by  Lee 


Marion  takes  Georgetown  without  loss 
Mydelton's  command  routed 


Siege  of  Ninety  Six 


Party  of  Royal  militia  attack  and  disperse 

Americans 
Marion   ambuscades   British   party  under 

Fraser 
Cooper  raids  within  10  miles  of  Charleston 

Battle  of  Eutaw 

American  post  captured  and  burnt  by  To- 
ries 

Whigs  massacred  by  Tories 

Whigs  massacred  by  Tories 

American  fort  captured;  garrison  massa- 
cred 

Moore,  commanding  a  party,  routed 

Post  taken  and  burnt 

Hampton  surprised  and  dispersed 

British  reconnoitring  party  defeated  and 

dispersed 
American  reconnoitring  party  defeated 
Americans  routed 


750 


APPENDIX  B 


AMERICAN 


122 
123 
124 

125 
126 
127 

128 
129 
180 

131 
182 
188 

134 

185 
186 
187 


Battle  or  Action, 
etc. 


Savannah  River 

Wambaw 

Tidyman's  Planta- 
tion 

Indian  Villages 

Beaufort 

Galley  captured, 
Ashley  River 

Oconee  River 

Dorchester 

Dean  Swamp 

Lorick's  Ferry 
Bowling  Green 
Coinbahee 

Wadboo 
Capers' s  Scout 
Port  Royal  Ferry 
John's  Island 


Place 
(What  is  now) 


Beaufort  Co. 
Berkeley  Co. 
Berkeley  Co. 

Oconee  Co. 
Beaufort  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 

Oconee  Co. 
Berkeley  Co. 
Orangeburg  Co. 

Edgefield  Co. 
Marion  Co. 
Colleton  Co. 

Berkeley  Co. 
Berkeley  Co. 
Beaufort  Co. 
Charleston  Co. 


Date 


24  Feb.  1782 

24  Feb.  1782 

25  Feb. 1782 

Mar.  1782 

13  Mar.  1782 
19  Mar.  1782 

1  Apr.  1782 

24  Apr.  1782 
May  1782 

May  1782 
3  June  1782 

25  Aug.  1782 

29  Aug.  1782 
Aug.  1782 

2  Sept.  1782 

14  Nov.  1782 


Barnwell,  R. 

McDonald 

Marion 

Pickens 

Rudulph 

Anderson 
O'Neal 
Watson  & 

Butler 
Butler 
Marion 
Laurens 

Marion 
Capers,  G.  S 
Gist 
Wilinot 


-« 

-o 

•^^ 

• 

•g 

■a 

a 

^ 

c 
o 

o 

2 

o 

S 

£ 

5 

5 

40 

4 

20 

12 

400 

1 

1 

9 

60 

2 

19 

21 

3 

12 

2 

APPENDIX   B 


751 


BRITISH,  TORY,   OR  INDIAN 


Commander 

1 

1 

1 

c 

3 
C 

be 

a 
o 

i 

2 

Yeaux 
omi'Son 
ompson 

A  small  affair 
Americans  defeated 
Americans  defeated 

Man  chief 
Veaux 

40 
4 

4 

28 

32 

Several  Indians  killed ;  villages  destroyed 

iian  chief 
wkins 
ry  officer 

' 

2 

Body  of  Tories  attacked  and  dispersed 

ningham,  W. 

iney 

fere  ton 

aser 

itish  officer 

140 
26 

8 

1 
n 

500 

500 

7 

19 

Cuningham's  band  dispersed 

Gainey's  band  of  Tories  surrender 

Small  affair,  in  which  Col.  John  T-anrens 

was  killed 
Last  action  in  which  Marion  engaged 
British  Black  Dragoons  cut  to  pieces 
Balfour  galley  taken 
Capt.  Wilmot  killed  on  John's  Island 

TABLE  OF  BATTLES,  ACTIONS,  AND  ENGAGEMENTS  WHICH 
TOOK  PLACE  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA  DURING  THE  REVO- 
LUTION,  ARRANGED  BY  COUNTIES  i 


Abbeville 


Aiken  .  . 
Anderson 
Barnwell 
Beaufort . 

Berkeley . 


Charleston . 


Chester  .  . 
Chesterfield 
Clarendon  . 

Colleton  .  . 


Darlington 
Edgefield    . 

Fairfield  .  . 


Ninety  Six,  1775;  Cherokee  Ford,  Savannah  River;  Long 
Cane  ;  Hammond's  Store  ;  Beattie's  Mill ;  Ninety  Six, 
1781. 

Beach  Island  ;  Fort  Galphin. 

Great  Cane  Brake,  Cherokee  Indian  Town  ;  Essenecca. 

Wiggins's  Hill ;  Vince's  Fort. 

Beaufort ;  Coosa whatchie  ;  Fort  Balfour,  Pocotaligo  ; 
Savannah  River;  Port  Royal  Ferry. 

Monck's  Corner,  1780  ;  Lenud's  Ferry  ;  Monck's  Corner, 
1781 ;  Wadboo  ;  2d  Wadboo  ;  Quinby  Bridge  (Shu- 
brick's)  ;  Washington's  Raid ;  Charlestown  Road ; 
Eutaw  ;  Fair  Lawn ;  Dorchester,  Dec.  1,  1781 ;  Dor- 
chester, Dec.  29,  1781 ;  Videau's  Bridge ;  Wambaw; 
Tidyman's  Plantation  ;  Dorchester,  April  24,  1782 ; 
Wadboo,  Aug.  29,  1782  ;  Capers' s  Scout. 

Naval  battle  ;  Fort  Moultrie ;  Provost's  Invasion  ;  Stono  ; 
Galley  fight,  Stono  River ;  Mathews's  Plantation ;  Cap- 
ture of  seven  British  vessels ;  Schooner  Battlesnake ; 
Rantowle's ;  Siege  of  Charlestown  ;  Quarter  House  ; 
Galley  Capture,  Ashley  River ;  John's  Island. 

Beckham's  Old  Field  ;  Fishing  Creek  ;  Fishdam. 

Nelson's  Ferry  ;    Singleton's  Mill   (Halfway  Swamp)  ; 

Wright's  Bluff ;  Wiboo  Swamp ;  Fort  Watson. 
Salkehatchie  ;    Pon    Pon  ;    Four  Holes ;   Barton's  Post ; 

Pocotaligo  Road  ;  Horse  Shoe  ;  Parker's  Ferry  ;  Com- 

bahee. 
Hunt's  Bluff. 
Mathews's  Bluff;   Horner's  Corner;   Hammond's  Mill; 

Stevens's  Creek  ;  Cloud's  Creek  ;  Lorick's  Ferry. 
Mobley's  Meeting-house  ;  Dutchman's  Creek. 


1  These  counties  are  as  the  counties  existed  prior  to  the  recent  subdivisions. 

752 


APPENDIX   B 


753 


Georgetown 


Greenville  . 
Hampton  . 
Horry  .  .  . 
Kershaw.  . 


Lancaster 
Laurens  . 
Lexington 


Marion.  .  . 
Marlboro.  . 
Newberry  . 
Oconee  .  .  . 


Orangeburg 


Pickens  .  . 
Richland.  . 
Spartanburg , 


Sumter   .  . 


Union  .... 
Williamsburg 


York 


De  Peyster's  Capture ;    White's  Bridge,  Sampit  Road ; 

Georgetown  ;   Sampit  Bridge  ;    Witherspoon's  Ferry  ; 

Georgetown. 
Gowen's  Fort. 

This  county  was  much  traversed  by  the  armies  in  1779. 
The  scene  of  Tory  operations. 
Flat  Rock ;  Camden  ;  Rugeley's  Mill ;  Lynch's  Creek 

Hobkirk's  Hill ;  Evacuation  of  Camden. 
Buford's    Massacre ;    Rocky    Mount ;    Hanging    Rock 

2d  Hanging  Rock  ;  Waxhaws  Church. 
Lyndley's  Fort ;  Musgrove's  Mills  ;  Cuningham's  Raid 

Hayes's  Station. 
Granby  ;   Mydelton  ambuscaded ;  Eggleston's  Capture 

Tarrar's. 
Snow  Island ;  Bowling  Green. 

Williams's  Plantation  ;  Mud  Lick  ;  Bush  River. 

Brass  Town  ;  Oconore  ;  Tomassy  ;  Indian  Villages  ;  Oco- 
nee River. 

Thomson's  Plantation  ;  Orangeburgh  (May,  1781)  ;  Fort 
Motte  ;  Fork  of  Edisto  ;  Moore's  Surprise  ;  R.  Hamp- 
ton's Surprise ;  Dean  Swamp. 

Wateree  ;  Friday's  Ferry,  May,  1781. 

Cedar  Springs ;  Gowen's  Old  Fort ;  McDowell's  Camp  ; 

Pursuit  Dunlap ;  Thicketty  Fort ;   Old  Iron  Works ; 

Cowpens. 
This  county  was  much  traversed  by  the  armies  during 

1780-81.     High  Hills  of  Santee  were  the  headquarters 

of  Greene. 
Brandon's  Camp ;  Blackstock. 
Port's   Ferry  ;    King's   Tree  ;    Black   Mingo ;   Tarcote ; 

Mount  Hope  ;  Black  River. 
Williamson's  Plantation  ;  Stallions  ;  Kmg's  Mountain. 


VOL.    IV.  — 3  c 


INDEX 


Abingdon,  Earl  of,  denounces  in 
House  of  Lords  execution  of  Colo- 
nel Hayue,  403. 

Alexander,  Captain  Samuel,  incident 
connected  with  his  command  at  Au- 
gusta, 270. 

Allen,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Isaac,  New 
Jersey  Loyalist,  737. 

AUston,  Captain  William,  Marion's 
brigade,  101;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  558. 

Amercement  Act,  considered,  582, 583, 
584,  585. 

Amie's  Mill,  light  at,  85,  86. 

Anderson,  Major ,  disperses  Tories 

at  Amie's  Mill,  85,  86. 

Anderson,  Captain (Tory),  Con- 
fiscation Act,  585. 

Anderson,  Colonel  Robert,  despatched 
with  Pickens  to  put  down  Indians, 
484;  mentioned,  514;  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  559;  ex- 
pedition against  Cherokees,  625,  654, 
655. 

Andr6,  Major  John,  order  for  trial  of 
Colonel  Hayne  follows  precedent  in 
his  case,  388. 

Andrews,  Lieutenant,  North  Carolina, 
wounded  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Anthony,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Antigua,  slave  of  John  Harleston,  em- 
ployed in  communication  with  Whigs 
in  Charlestown,  528. 

Archer,  Captain  Henry,  Leo's  Legion, 
80. 

Armstrong,  Captain  George,  Mary- 
land, killed  at  Ninety  Six,  300. 

Armstrong,  Major,  North  Carolina, 
arrives  with  levies,  308;  sent  with 
Eggleston  to  reconnoitre,  309;  takes 
part  in  battle  of  Eutaw,  448. 


Armstrong,  Captain  James,  Lee's  Le- 
gion, 80;  Colonel  Browne  given  in 
charge  to,  273 ;  at  battle  of  Quinby 
bridge,  334,  335;  attacked,  defeated, 
and  captured  by  Major  Coffin,  506, 
507. 

Arnold,  Benedict,  sent  to  replace  Les- 
lie in  Virginia,  93,  94;  mentioned, 
536. 

Arthur,  George,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Ash,  Samuel,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Ashby,  Colonel,  in  command  of  Mar- 
ion's infantry,  639,  649. 

Ashe,  Colonel,  of  North  Carolina, 
takes  part  in  battle  of  Eutaw,  448. 

Ashe,  General  John,  North  Carolina, 
defeat  of,  at  Brier  Creek,  mentioned, 
713. 

Ashley  Hall,  army  at,  669. 

Atmore,  Ealph,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Augusta,  sieges  of,  268-277. 

Axon,  William,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Baddeley,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358; 
joins  in  reply  to  Balfour's  announce- 
ment of  holding  prisoners  as  host- 
ages, 359,  360. 

Balfour,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Nisbet, 
question  with  Rawdon  as  to  his  com- 
mand, 97,  98;  mentioned,  99,  137; 
his  correspondence  with  Watson  and 
Saunders  in  regard  to  the  seizure  of 
Postell,  152,  153,  154;  letter  of,  to 
Clinton  on  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
203  ;  meets  Rawdon  at  Nelson's 
Ferry  with  report  of  rising  of  the 
country,  249;  Rawdon's  despatches 
to  Crnger  to  abandon  Ninety  Six 
sent  through,  256;  mentioned,  280; 
applies  to  Colonel  Gould  for  reen- 
forcenients,  30(5, 307  ;  correspondence 
Avith  Moultrie  in  regard  to  treat- 


755 


756 


INDEX 


ment  of  prisoners,  347, 348 ;  attempts 
to  seduce  Moultrie,  355 ;  correspond- 
ence Avitli  Moultrie  upon  subject  of 
imprisonment  of  Grinike  and  Hab- 
ersham, 355,  356;  issues  order  for- 
bidding prisoners  on  parole  from 
pursuing  any  business  or  calling, 
355,  356 ;  seizes  paroled  prisoners  as 
hostages,  359;  relations  with  Lord 
Rawdon,  367 ;  headquarters  at  Brev.'- 
ton  mansion,  ibid. ;  his  tyrannical 
conduct,  368,  369 ;  orders  families  of 
exiles  out  of  province,  375 ;  prohibits 
prisoners  on  parole  from  letting  their 
houses,  376  ;  his  cruel  edict  men- 
tioned, 379;  his  course  in  regard  to 
Colonel  Hayne,  382^04;  mentioned, 
542,  725. 

Balfour,  Fort,  taken  by  Harden,  135; 
mentioned,  226,  239,  537,  538,  551. 

Balfour  Galley,  capture  of,  ()52. 

Ball,  Elias,  of  Comingtee,  in  Con- 
fiscation Act,  586. 

Ball,  Elias,  of  Wambaw,  in  Confisca- 
tion Act,  586. 

Ball,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Ballingall,  Colonel  Robert,  Loyal- 
ist attacked  by  Harden,  129,  130  ; 
his  connection  with  Colonel 
Hayne's  case,  130,  131;  mentioned, 
136. 

Baltimore,  objective  point  of  British 
campaign,  93. 

Banks,  John,  his  fraudulent  trans- 
actions, 180,  677,  678,  679,  680,  681, 
682,  683,  684;  secures,  contract  to 
feed  army,  081,  682. 

Barfield,  Captain  (Tory),  men- 
tioned, 84. 

Barge,  George,  commissioner  of  Penn- 
sylvania for  Carolinian  exiles  in 
Philadelphia,  379. 

Barnabas  Deane  &  Co.,  General 
Greene  a  partner  of  firm  of. 

Barnwell,  Edward,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Barnwell,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359; 
joins  in  reply  to  Balfour's  announce- 
ment of  holding  prisoners  as  host- 
ages, 3(i0;  appointed  brigadier- 
general,  529,  530;  resigns,  594; 
mentioned,  611;  on  committee  on 
subject  of  impressments,  687. 


Barnwell,  Robert,  on  prison  ship, 
359;  commands  party  against  De 
Veaux's  expedition,  611 ;  mentioned, 
731. 

Barry,  Captain  Henry,  prepares  ad- 
dress to  Rawdon  and  Balfour  in 
Colonel  Hayne's  case,  385,  386. 

Barton,  Captain (Br.),  captured 

by  Harden,  1.34. 

Barton's  Post,  captured  by  Harden, 
134;  mentioned,  537,  538,  551. 

Basquin,  William,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

"  Bates,  Bloody,"  massacres  garri- 
son of  Gowen's  fort,  477,  479,  480. 

Baxter,  John,  captain  in  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 82, 100;  mentioned,  120;  takes 
part  in  Sumter's  expedition  to  Low- 
Country,  322;  is  wounded,  338; 
mentioned,  514;  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  558;  holds 
Loyalists  in  check,  639;  mentioned, 
718. 

Bayard,  Colonel  John,  commissioner 
of  Pennsylvania  for  Carolinian  ex- 
iles in  Philadelphia,  379,  380. 

Bayle,  Francis,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Baylor,  Colonel  George  (Va.),  in 
command  of  Greene's  cavalry,  638. 

Beach  Island,  affair  at,  264. 

Beale,  Captain,  takes  part  in  battle 
of  Cowpens,  41 ;  his  command  as 
major  on  reorganization  of  Greene's 
forces,  637. 

Beard,  Colonel  Jonas,  prisoner  in 
provost,  368. 

Beattie,  Captain  "William,  killed  at 
Hobkirk's  Hill,  192, 197;  mentioned, 
199,  551. 

Beattie's  Mill,  affair  at,  127;  men- 
tioned, 257,  537,538. 

Beckham's  Old  Field,  affair  at,  men- 
tioned, 735. 

Bee,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358; 
member  of  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture. 558. 

Bee,  Thomas,  Lieutenant-Governor, 
member  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture, 558;  mentioned,  570. 

Benbridge.  Henry,  on  prison  ship,  3.58. 

Bennett,  Captain  Thomas,  Marlon's 
brigade,  100;  gallant  conduct  at  Vi- 
deau's  bridge,  591. 


INDEX 


757 


Benison,  Major  William,  of  Mariou's 
brigade,  99;  member  of  the  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  558;  takes 
part  iu  affair  at  Wambaw,  602,  003 ; 
aud  is  killed,  604. 

Benson,  Captain  Perry,  at  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  191. 

Benson,  Major  (Br.),  mentioned,  346. 

Benton,  Colonel  Lemuel,  Marion's 
brigade,  514. 

Beresford,  Richard,  member  privy 
council,  572;  lieutenant-governor, 
685. 

Berwick,  John,  clerk,  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, 562. 

Biggin  Church,  Coates  crosses  to, 
from  Monck's  Corner,  and  burns, 
331. 

Bingham,  William,  commissioner  of 
Penusylvania  for  Carolinian  exiles 
in  Philadelphia,  379. 

Black,  Captain  ,  takes  part  in 

expedition  against  Cherokees,  625. 

Black  River,  affair  at,  118 ;  mentioned, 
537,  538,  551,  723. 

Blackstock,  Battle  of,  mentioned,  54, 
55,  57,  720. 

Blake,  Edward,  exile,  and  member 
of  the  Jacksonborough  legislature, 
557 ;  commissioner  of  the  treasury, 
672;  commissioner  to  carry  out 
agreement  between  Governor  Math- 
ews and  General  Leslie  to  prevent 
plunder  on  evacuation,  659,  660;  re- 
called, 661. 

Blake,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Blewford,  Major,  of  Sumter's  com- 
mand, mentioned,  485. 

Blount,  Major,  of  North  Carolina, 
takes  part  in  the  battle  of  Eutaw, 
448. 

Blundell,  Nathan,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Bocker,  Lieutenant  (Br.) ,  commander 
of  Balfour  galley  when  captured, 
652. 

Bocquet.  Major  Peter,  prisoner  in  pro- 
vost, 369;  member  of  the  Jackson- 
borough legislature,  557 ;  member 
privy  council,  572,  685;  on  commit- 
tee on  subject  of  impressment,  687. 

Boone's  Barony,  purchased  for  Gen- 
eral Greene,  703. 


Boon  (Boone  ?),  Lieutenant,  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  461. 

Bounetheau,  Peter,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Bowie,  Major,  Governor  Rutledge 
sends  blank  commissions  to  Sumter 
by,  510. 

Bowman,  John,  correspondent  of  the 
Duke  of  Richmond,  408. 

Braddock's  Defeat,  mentioned,  709. 

Bradley,  James,  member  of  Jackson- 
borough legislature,  559. 

Brandon,  Colonel  Thomas,  mentioned, 
229;  manoeuvres  between  Augusta 
and  Ninety  Six,  263;  mentioned,  285, 
286, 514 ;  member  of  Jacksonborough 
legislature,  559 ;  mentioned,  731. 

Branford,  William,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Bratton,  Colonel  William,  mentioned, 

I,  54,  149,  229,  424,  514,  717. 
Brewton  Mansion,  scene  of  ladies'  ap- 
peal for  Hayne's  life,  394,  395. 

Bricken,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

British  Forces  in  South  Carolina, 
strength  of,  9*5,  97. 

Brockington,  Captain  John  (Tory), 
warns  Watson  of  Lee's  approach, 
172. 

Brooks,  Captain,  warns  Colonel  Hayes 
of  Cuningham's  approach,  473. 

Brown,  William,  commissary  pris- 
oners, St.  Augustine,  kindly  con- 
duct to  exiles,  372,  373,  376. 

Browne,  Captain,  takes  part  in  battle 
of  Eutaw,  448. 

Browne,  Colonel  Thomas  (Tory), 
Cruger,  commanding  Ninety  Six, 
directed  to  join  him,  256;  sends 
party  to  dislodge  McKoy  from 
Mathews's  Bluff,  party  defeated, 
259;  moves  against  Harden,  259; 
affair  at  Wiggins's  Hill,  259, 260,  261 ; 
mentioned,  263, 264 ;  commands  Fort 
Cornwallis  at  siege  of  Augusta,  268; 
his  conduct  of  its  defence,  269,  270, 
271,  272;  surrender,  273;  measures 
taken  for  his  protection,  notwith- 
standing his  former  cruelties,  273; 
is  safely  guarded  to  Savannah,  275. 

Buford,  Colonel  Abraham,  mentioned, 

II,  3e).  37. 

Bull,  Lieutenant-Governor  William, 


758 


INDEX 


his  appeal  for  Colonel  Hayne,  395, 
396;  conspicuous  absence  of  his  name 
in  Confiscation  Act,  584,  585. 

Bull,  General  Stephen,  his  planta- 
tion ravaged  and  house  burnt,  610. 

Burdell's  Plantation,  Greene's  army 
at,  4()4. 

Burgojme,  General,  exchanged  for 
General  Moultrie,  668;  mentioned, 
711,  712. 

Burgoyne's  Army,  mentioned,  346, 347. 

Burke,  Mdanus,  as  judge  presides  in 
case  of  Sumter's  law,  146,  147. 

Burke,  Governor,  of  North  Carolina, 
sends  express  to  Greene,  464 ;  is  cap- 
tured, 465,  466 ;  his  capture  alluded 
to,  496. 

Burnett,  Major  Ichabod,  aide  to  Gen- 
eral Greene,  8 ;  writes  to  Sumter  by 
Greene's  direction,  418;  becomes 
involved  with  Banks  &  Co.'s  trans- 
actions, 677,  678,  679. 

Bush  River,  affair  at,  209 ;  mentioned, 
551. 

Butler,  Captain  James,  killed  by 
"Bloody  Bill"   Cuniugham,  471. 

Butler,  James,  Jr.,  killed  by  "  Bloody 
Bill "  Cuniugham,  471. 

Butler,  Pierce,  member  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  558 ;  sketch  of, 
ibid. 

Butler,  Thomas,  accompanies  his 
brother  William  against  "Bloody 
Bill "  Cuniugham,  629. 

Butler,  William  (son  of  James),  es- 
capes massacre,  473;  takes  part  in 
affair  at  Deane  Swamp,  627,  628, 
629;  becomes  leader  of  the  Whigs 
against  "  Bloody  Bill  "  Cuningham, 
and  ultimately  defeats  him  and  dis- 
perses his  band,  628,  629,  630,  631; 
mentioned,  731. 

Caldwell,  John,  William  Cuningham 
enlists  under  and  mutinies  against, 
468. 

Calhoun  (properly  spelled  Colhoun), 
John  Ewing,  member  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  559. 

Calhoun,  Patrick,  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  559. 

Camden,  Greene  appears  before,  182, 
183, 186 ;  takes  position  against,  188 ; 


Rawdon  marches  from  and  attacks 
Greene,  189;  abandonment  of  ren- 
dered necessary,  202;  Watson,  Mc- 
Arthur,  and  Doyle  succeed  in  mak- 
ing their  way  into,  213,  215 ;  Rawdon 
determines  to  abandon,  235;  men- 
tioned, 239. 

Cameron,  William,  property  confis- 
cated, 586. 

Campbell,  Colonel  Alexander  (Br.), 
mentioned,  713,  736. 

Campbell,  Captain (Br.),  at  bat- 
tle of  Quinby  bridge,  333,  334, 

Campbell,  Captain,  New  Jersey  Vol- 
unteers (Tory),  commands  sallying 
party  at  Ninety  Six,  300. 

Campbell,  Captain  Archibald  (Br.), 
"  Mad  Archie,"  captures  Hajoie, 
320,  321  ;  is  killed  in  affair  at 
Videau's  bridge,  592  ;  romantic 
tradition  in   regard  to,  ibid. 

Campbell,  Lieutenant-Colonel  George 
(Br.),  surrenders  at  Georgetown,  87. 

Campbell,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Rich- 
ard, of  Virginia,  at  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
191,  192,  197;  takes  part  at  siege  of 
Ninety  Six,  299,  300 ;  takes  part  in 
battle  of  Eutaw,  448 ;  is  killed,  460, 
462. 

Campbell,  Colonel  William,  of  Vir- 
ginia, mentioned,  1,  223. 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  appointed  com- 
mander-in-chief in  America,  636. 

Capers,  G.  Sinclair,  Marion's  brigade, 
101;  gallant  conduct  at  Videau's 
bridge,  591 ;  another  gallant  action 
of,  651. 

Capers,  William,  Marion's  brigade, 
101. 

Carey,  Fort,  Sumter's  affair  at,  men- 
tioned, 36. 

Carlisle,  volunteer,  killed  at  Eutaw, 
460. 

Carnes,  Captain  Patrick  (Lee's  Le- 
gion), 80;  takes  part  in  attempt 
upon  Geoigetown,  86,  87. 

Carolina  Coffee  House,  London,  men- 
tioned, 707. 

Carr,  Captain  Patrick,  surprises,  de- 
feats, and  kills  Major  Dill,  264. 

Carrington,  Cornet  Clements  (Lee's 
Legion),  80. 


INDEX 


759 


Carrington,  Colonel  Edward,  quarter- 
master to  General  Greene,  8;  men- 
tioned, 163 ;  ordered  to  Rugeley's 
Mill,  188,  189. 

Carrington,  Mr.,  volunteer,  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  401. 

Carrington,  Lieutenant  George  (Lee's 
Legion),  80;  mentioned,  279;  at  bat- 
tle of  Quinby  bridge,  3o5. 

Carrington,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Rich- 
ard (Va.),  at  Hobkirk's  Hill,  188, 
189;  negotiates  cartel  of  exchange 
of  prisoners,  356;  makes  contract 
with  Banks  &  Co.  to  feed  army,  680, 
681,  682. 

Carson,  Lieutenant,  wounded  mor- 
tally at  Eutaw,  461, 

"Cassius,"  Address  of,  in  answer  to 
Governor  Rutledge's  proclamation 
in  regard  to  Tories,  524,  525,  526; 
bears  good  fruit,  588. 

Cattell,  Benjamin,  member  of  Privy 
Council,  511;  member  of  the  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  557. 

Cedar  Springs,  Battle  of,  mentioned, 
19. 

Charlestown  Eoad,  Cooper's  raid  on 
same,  440. 

Cherokee  Indians,  uprising  of,  484, 
485,  624,  625,  653,  654. 

Cheshire,  Captain,  Royal  Militia,  ne- 
gotiates truce  on  part  of  Tories, 
626,  627 ;  is  seized  by  Major  Good- 
win, ibid. 

Cheraw  Hill,  Greene's  army  marches 
to,  15. 

Chitty,  Captain  C.  K,  commissary, 
mentioned,   GG,   67. 

Clarke,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Allured 
(Br.),  commands  at  St.  Augustine, 
374  ;  now  general,  sends  Creek 
Indians  to  join  Cherokees,  653,  654. 

Clarke,  Colonel  Elijah,  of  Georgia, 
mentioned,  1,  23,  38,  55;  with  Mc- 
Call  attacks  Dunlap  at  Beattie's 
Mill,  127,  128;  mentioned,  150,223, 
258;  stricken  M'ith  small-pox,  258; 
Williamson  commands  in  his  ab- 
sence, ibid. ;  recovers,  marches  to 
Augusta,  263,  264;  captures  goods 
sent  by  British  to  Indians,  265,  266; 
mentioned,  279;  Greene  calls  upon. 


to  join  him,  286;  his  operations  con- 
fined to  Georgia,  553 ;  joins  Ander- 
son against  Cherokees,  625;  joins 
Pickens  in  last  expedition  against 
Cherokees,  654, 655, 656 ;  mentioned, 

719,  urn. 

Clarke,  John,  Jr.,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Clarke,  Captain  (Toiy),  killed, 

262. 

Clary,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Daniel 
(lory),  named  in  Confiscation  Act, 
585,  586. 

Cleveland,  Colonel  Benjamin,  of 
North  Carolina,  mentioned,  1,  223. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  commander-in- 
chief  British  army,  orders  Leslie 
to  reenforce  Cornwallis  in  South 
Carolina,  8,  9;  sends  Arnold  to  re- 
place Leslie  m  Virginia,  93,  94;  his 
criticism  upon  Connvallis's  advance, 
93,  94;  effect  of  his  proclamation 
revoking  paroles,  149,  150 ;  letter  of 
Balfour  to,  on  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  203;  mentioned,  382;  his  move- 
ments in  consequence  of  arrival  of 
second  French  fleet,  436,  437 ;  men- 
tioned, 508,  711,  714,  715,  716,  719. 

Cloud's  Creek  Massacre,  471, 472, 473; 
mentioned,  551. 

Coates,  Lieutenant-Colonel  (Br.),  sent 
with  regiment  to  Monck's  Corner, 
325 ;  moves  to  Quinby  bridge,  331 ; 
commands  British  force  at  battle  of, 
332,  343. 

Cochran,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Coffin,  Major  John,  Ix)yalist  from 
Massachusetts,  commands  at  Nel- 
son's Ferry,  17;  mentioned,  78;  at 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  IM,  195, 19(5 ; 
cavalry  raised  for  his  command,  292 ; 
ambuscades  Mydelton,  198;  at 
Eutaw,  444,  446,  447,  449,  453,  456, 
457;  one  of  the  heroes  of,  463;  at- 
tacks, defeats,  and  captures  Captain 
Armstrong  of  Lee's  Legion,  506,  507; 
attacks  and  defeats  Richardson  at 
Videau's  bridge,  590,  591;  men- 
tioned, 737. 

Colcock,  Mr.  John,  counsel  for  Colonel 
Hayne,  391;  his  opinion  on  case, 
392. 

Combahee,  Leslie  sends  expedition  to, 


760 


INDEX 


for  supplies,  641;  affair  at  John 
Laurens's  death,  6i2,  643,  644. 

Confiscation  Act  of  Jacksonborough 
legislature,  576;  its  preamble,  576, 
577;  provisions  of,  578,  579;  the 
same  considered,  580,  581,  582,  583, 
584,  585,  586,  587,  588. 

Connaway,  Captain,  Royal  militia,  at- 
tacks and  disperses  one  of  Harden's 
parties  on  Edisto,  434. 

Conyers,  Captain  Daniel,  Marion's 
brigade,  82,  100 ;  takes  part  in  am- 
buscade of  Watson,  114;  distin- 
guishes himself,  117;  mentioned, 
171,  428;  major  of  new  corps,  639; 
his  command  consolidated  with 
that  of  Maham,  639;  takes  part  in 
affair  at  Fayssoux's,  651. 

Conyers,  Norwood,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Cook,  John,  killed  by  "  Bloody  Bill " 
Cuningham  at  Hayes's  Station,  475. 

Cooper,  Captain  George,  detached  by 
Marion  to  Dorchester,  439, 

Cooper,  Major,  under  Harden  captures 
Barton's  post,  134. 

Cooper,  Lieutenant,  brings  answer  to 
Colonel  Hayne  refusing  respite,  394 ; 
reads  message  granting  respite,  397. 

Cooper,  Captain  Samuel,  Marion's 
brigade,  101 ;  routes  Tories  at 
Cypress  swamp,  440 ;  raids  Charles- 
town  road,  ibid. ;  takes  conspicuous 
part  in  affair  at  Videau's  bridge, 
591. 

Corley,  Abner,  accompanies  William 
Butler  against  "Bloody  Bill"  Cun- 
ingham, 629. 

Corley,  John,  accompanies  William 
Butler  against  "Bloody  Bill"  Cun- 
ingham, 529,  630. 

Cornwallis,  Earl,  General  Leslie 
ordered  to  reenforce  him,  9;  pre- 
pares for  renewed  advance  into 
North  Carolina,  26,  27;  begins  his 
march  into  North  Carolina,  92 ;  not 
deterred  by  Greene's  position  at 
Cheraw,  95 ;  mentioned,  96, 183, 184 ; 
reports  of  his  movements,  210,  211 ; 
Rawdon  complains  of,  225 ;  despatch 
to  Rawdon  in  regard  to  landing  of 
reenforcements  intercepted,  284, 291 ; 
calls  upon  Moultrie  to  order  Pendle- 


ton back  as  prisoner,  346 ;  unfavor- 
able to  Balfour,  382 ;  Hayne  executed 
under  general  instructions  of,  400; 
Greene  writes  to  him  on  subject, 
ibid.;  mentioned,  536,  539,  540,  554, 
626 ;  exchanged  for  Henry  Laurens, 
636;  mentioned,  714,  717,  718,  719, 
720,  726. 

Cornwallis,  Captain  (Br.),  negotiates 
cartel  of  exchange  of  prisoners,  356. 

Cornwallis,  Fort,  at  Augusta,  siege  of, 
268,  269,  270. 

Cowan,  Captain,  wounded  at  Eutaw, 
461. 

Cowan's  Ford,  affair  at,  120. 

Cowpens,  Battle  of,  33-51 ;  mentioned, 
91,  92,  96;  British  losses  at,  95; 
mentioned,  536,  551. 

Cox,  James,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Craig,  Colonel,  garrison  of  Wilming- 
ton under,  removed  to  CharlestowTi, 
492;  posted  on  John's  Island,  493; 
mentioned,  501 ;  expedition  against, 
502,  503,  504,  505,  506. 

Cray,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Cruden,  commissioner  of  sequestered 
estates,  gives  ball  upon  news  of  bat- 
tle of  Guilford  Court-house,  156. 

Cruger,  Lieutenant-Colonel  John 
Harris,  Pickens's  message  to,  21 ; 
Rawdou's  despatches  to  him  to 
abandon  Ninety  Six  intercepted, 
255,  256,  263;  mentioned,  264;  his 
defence  of  Ninety  Six,  280,  303; 
mentioned,  305;  left  at  Ninety  Six, 
307;  covers  Loyalists'  exodus  from 
Ninety  Six,  314,  315;  mentioned, 
316;  at  Eutaw,  444;  mentioned, 
543,  544,  737. 

Culpeper,  Lieutenant,  wounded  at 
Eutaw,  461. 

Cuningham,  Andrew,  mentioned,  469; 
name  in  Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Cuningham,  John,  mentioned,  4(59; 
name  in  Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Cuningham,  Joseph,  compelled  by 
Butler  to  guide  him  against  his 
brother,  629. 

Cuningham.  Patrick,  mentioned,  4^9. 

Cimingham,  Robert,  made  brigadier- 
general  of  loyal  militia,  is  defeated 
at  Williams's  plantation,  24,  25,  27; 


INDEX 


761 


defeats  Major  Moore,  485;  men- 
tioned, 549;  avails  himself  of  terms 
and  makes  his  peace,  07. 

Cuningham,  William,  "Bloody  Bill," 
sketch  of,  467,  468,  469,  470;  his 
bloody  exploits,  470,  471,  472,  473, 
474,  475;  defeats  Colonel  Richard 
Hampton  and  disperses  his  party, 
490;  his  second  raid,  is  ultimately 
defeated  and  his  band  dispersed 
bv  William  Butler,  628,  629,  630, 
631. 

Cunningliam,  Major  John,  of  Georgia, 
commands  Clarke's  men  at  affair 
at  Hammond's  Store,  23;  commands 
Georgians  at  Cowpens,  32,  33,  42,  44  ; 
marches  with  Pickens  against  Che- 
rokees,  624. 

Currency,  Table  of  depreciation  of, 
365,  366,  367. 

Davidson,  General  William,  of  North 
Carolhia,  mentioned,  1;  his  com- 
mand at  Cowpens,  31,  38;  Greene 
rides  to  consult,  94 ;  killed  at  Cow- 
an's Ford,  120;  mentioned,  446,  481, 
553. 

Davie,  Colonel  William  R.,  men- 
tioned, 1;  accepts  position  as  com- 
missary, 13,  14,  15 ;  mentioned,  55, 
121,  163;  quoted,  190;  his  account 
of  Greene's  plans  for  abandonment 
of  campaign  in  South  Carolina,  216, 
217,  218,  219;  mentioned,  223,  446, 
553,  677,  718,  719. 

Da  vies,  Colonel,  negotiates  truce  with 
Tories,  627. 

Davis,  Captain  W.  R.,  Sumter's 
order  to,  428,  429,  430. 

Dawkins,  Captain  (Br.),  attacks  and 
defeats  O'Neal  at  Dorchester,  624. 

Dean  Swamp,  affair  at,  627,  628, 
()29. 

D'Estaing,  mentioned,  483,  736. 

DeGrasse,  Count,  mentioned,  54;  ar- 
rives with  second  French  fleet,  4;>6 ; 
refuses  cooperation  for  recovery  of 
Charlestown,  481,  482;  mentioned, 
483,  484. 

D3  Lancey's  Corps,  mentioned,  280 ;  at 
battle  of  Eutaw,  453. 

DePeyster,  Captain  James,  captured 
by  Postell,  83;  mentioned,  551. 


DeSaussure,  Daniel,  member  privy 
council,  685. 

De  Saussure,  Henry  W.,  on  prison 
ship,  359. 

Da  Saussure,  Mary,  petition  of.  to 
Balfour,  378. 

DeVeaux,  Andrew  (Tory),  conducts 
a  raid  against  Wayne  in  Georgia, 
610,  611. 

Dewall,  Lieutenant  (Md.),  killed  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Dewar,  Robert,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Dill,  Major  (Tory),  surprised,  de- 
feated, and  killed,  264. 

Dillon,  Lieutenant,  of  North  Carolina, 
killed  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Dixon,  Lieutenant,  of  North  Caro- 
lina, wounded  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Dobson,  Captain  (Md.),  killed  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Dorchester,  taken  by  Lee,  327 ;  Hamp- 
ton defeats  Loyalists  at,  491 ;  men- 
tioned, 551. 

Dorsius,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358 
(misspelled  in  text  Dorsus). 

Doyle,  Lieutenant-Colonel  John  (Br.), 
directed  to  cooperate  with  Watson 
in  crushing  Marion,  112;  incident 
related  by,  ibid.;  attacks  and  defeats 
Erwin  at  Snow  Island,  118;  Marion 
attacks  and  defeats  him,  ibid.;  gets 
into  Camden,  213,  215;  mentioned, 
251 ;  joins  Rawdon  on  his  march  to 
Ninety  Six,  292;  sails  for  Europe 
with  Lord  Rawdon,  is  captured  at 
sea,  424;  Stuart  turns  over  com- 
mand to,  466;  mentioned,  537,  538, 
540;  commands  royal  militia  in 
Colonel  Thompson's  raids,  603,  604; 
mentioned,  723. 

Drayton,  William  Henry,  Death  of, 
mentioned,  64(). 

Drew,  Lieutenant,  wounded,  4(il. 

Drew,  Captain  (Va.),  mentioned,  12. 

Dudley,  Lieutenant,  North  Carolina, 
wounded,  460. 

Duncan,  James,  on  confiscation  list, 
586. 

Dunlap,  Major  James  (Br.),  his 
sanguinary  career,  is  mortally 
wounded,  as  supposed  by  Captain 
Gilbert,    because    of    abduction    of 


762 


INDEX 


Mary  Mc!Rea,  19,  20;  plunders 
Pickens's  house,  his  cruel  conduct  to 
McCall's  family,  ibid.;  his  attack 
and  defeat  by  Clarke  and  McCall 
at  Beattie's  Mill,  127 ;  question  as  to 
his  death,  128 ;  mentioned,  226,  276, 
537,  737. 

Dunlap,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Dunn  Ads.  Porter,  case  of,  145,  146, 
147. 

Dutchman's  Creek,  affair  at,  126,  127 ; 
mentioned,  538,  551. 

Dwight,  Nathaniel,  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  558. 

Earle's  Ford,  affair  at,  mentioned,  19. 

Eaton,  Major  Pinkertham  (N.C.), 
joins  Greene  with  North  Carolina 
levies,  188 ;  mentioned  251 ;  takes 
part  in  siege  of  Augusta,  268,  269; 
is  killed,  270;  mentioned,  277,  442. 

Eberly,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Edgerly,  Captain  (Md.),  killed  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Edisto,  Fork  of,  Tory  leader  Will- 
iams's raids  into,  476. 

Edmunds,  Rev.  James,  on  prison 
ship,  358. 

Edmunds,  Captain  Thomas  (Va.), 
takes  part  in  battle  of  Eutaw,  448 ; 
killed,  460. 

Edwards,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Edwards,  Mrs. ,  Colonel  Hayne 

sends  papers  to,  397. 

Eggleston,  Captain  Joseph,  Lee's 
Legion,  80;  detached  to  attack 
picket,  121 ;  his  recollection  as  to 
movement  by  Greene  into  South 
Carolina  after  battle  of  Guilford 
Court-house,  160;  negotiates  sur- 
render of  Maxwell  at  Granby,  237, 
238,  239;  detached  to  reconnoitre, 
309;  mentioned,  551. 

Elliott,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Elliott,  Captain  Thomas,  appointed 
on  Marion's  staff,  82. 

Elliott,  William,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Ellis,  Richard,  keeper  Quarter  House 
captured,  507. 

Erskine,  Lieutenant,  w^ounded  at 
Eutaw,  461. 

Erwin,  Colonel  John,  of  Marion's 
brigade,  99 ;  left  in  charge  of  Snow 


Island,  113;  attacked  and  defeated 
by  Doyle,  118;  mentioned,  119,  154. 

Eutaw  Springs,  Battle  of,  441-463; 
strength  of  forces  at,  443,  444;  men- 
tioned, 544,  551. 

Evacuation  of  Charlestown,  671,  672, 
673,  674,  675. 

Evans,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Eveleigh,  Nicholas,  member  privy 
council,  685. 

Eveleigh,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Ewing,  Lieutenant  (Md.),  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  460. 

Exiles  to  St.  Augustine,  their  treat- 
ment, 371,  372,  373,  374,  375,  376; 
returning  home,  556 ;  many  of  them 
elected  to  Assembly,  557. 

Fair  Lawn,  affair  at,  488,  489;  men- 
tioned, 551. 

Fanning,  notorious  Tory  leader  of 
North  Carolina,  mentioned,  639. 

Fayssoux,  Dr.  Peter,  his  account  of 
British  treatment  of  prisoners,  349. 

Fenwick,  Colonel,  Harden's  affair 
with,  134. 

Ferguson,  Colonel  Patrick,  men- 
tioned, 30. 

Ferguson,  Thomas,  exile,  of  Gov- 
ernor's Council,  511 ;  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  577 ; 
commissioner  to  purchase  estate  for 
General  Greene,  574. 

Finley,  Captain,  joins  Lee  with  piece 
of  artillery,  206;  uses  it  aj;  Fort 
Motte,  235. 

Finn,  Captain  Lieutenant,  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  461. 

Firis,  James,  killed  by  "  Bloody  Bill  " 
Cuningham  at  Hayes's  Station,  475. 

Fishdam,  affair  at,  mentioned,  54,  55, 
720. 

Fisher,  John,  in  Confiscation  Act,  586. 

Flagg,  George,  exile,  member  Jack- 
sonborough legislature,  558. 

Flat  Rock,  affair  at,  mentioned,  720. 

Fletchall,  Colonel,  mentioned,  549; 
not  named  in  Confiscation  Act,  586. 

Ford,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Benjamin, 
(Md.),  at  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
191,  192,  193;  mortally  w^ounded, 
193,  197. 


INDEX 


768 


Forsyth,  Major  Robert,  deputy  com- 
missary-general, 8;  introduces 
John  Banks  to  General  Greene, 
677. 

Fort  Motte,  siege  of,  230,  231,  232,  233, 
234;  mentioned,  724. 

Four  Holes,  affair  at,  134;  mentioned, 
537,  538,  551. 

Franklin,  Dr.  Benjamin,  mentioned, 
4%. 

Fraser,  Major  C.  (Br.),  intercepts 
Sumter,  110,  111 ;  reenforcesRawdon, 
at  Camden,  164;  commissary  of 
prisoners,  362, 363 ;  brings  death  sen- 
tence to  Colonel  Hayne,  393,  394; 
is  ambuscaded  by  Marion,  439;  with 
Colonel  Thompson  on  his  raids,  pro- 
tests against  his  attempt  to  cross  the 
Ashley,  its  result,  607. 

French,  Captain,  of  De  Lancey's  corps 
(Tory),  commands  sallying  party  at 
Ninety  Six,  300. 

Friday's  or  Fridig's  Ferry,  affair  at, 
209. 

Fuller,  William,  a  young  volunteer, 
takes  part  in  last  fight  of  war,  667. 

Futhey,  Captain  John,  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 101. 

Gadsden,  Christopher,  immured  in 
dungeon  at  St.  Augustine,  371;  re- 
leased ;  chief  of  party  on  voyage 
from  St.  Augustine  to  Philadelphia, 
377 ;  member  Jacksonborough  legis- 
lature, 558 ;  elected  governor,  but  de- 
clines the  office,  570,  571 ;  his  speech 
thereon,  571,  572;  member  privy 
council,  572. 

Gadsden,  Philip,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Gainey,  Major  Micajah  (Tory),  at- 
tacked by  Peter  Horry,  pursued  and 
bayoneted,  84,  85;  again  takes  the 
field,  120;  Horry's  treaty  with  him, 
317,  318;  again  rises,  4fj(i. 

Gaines,  Captain  William  Fleming,  of 
Virginia,  takes  part  in  battle  of 
Eutaw,  448. 

Galphin  Fort,  capture  of,  by  Rudulph, 
266;  mentioned,  551. 

Garden,  Dr.  Alexander  (Tory),  refuses 
medical  certificate  of  disability  to 
Lord  Rawdon  upon  his  leaving  the 
field.  384. 


Garden,  Alexander,  author  of  Gar- 
den's "  Anecdotes  of  the  Revolu- 
tion," serves  as  volunteer  in  Lee's 
Legion,  80 ;  his  father  refuses  asso- 
ciation with  him,  384. 

Gargie,  Mitchell,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Gates,  General  Horatio,  endeavors  to 
reorganize  his  vanquished  army,  1; 
is  relieved  of  command,  ibid. ;  corps 
organized  by  him  for  Morgan's  com- 
mand, 10,  11 ;  mentioned,  718. 

Gee,  Captain,  wounded  at  Eutaw,  461. 

Georgetown,  affair  at,  86,  87,  88 ;  men- 
tioned, 551. 

Georgetown,  burned  by  Manson,  318. 

Germain,  Lord  George,  correspon- 
dence with  Sir  Henry  Clinton  in 
reference  to  Lord  Rawdon's  rank, 
97,  98 ;  mentioned,  717. 

Gervais,  John  Lewis,  his  escape  into 
North  Carolina,  508,  511 ;  member 
of  Jacksonborough  legislature,  559; 
chosen  president  of  Senate,  562; 
elected  delegate  to  Congress,  572. 

Gibbs,  Major  Zachariah  (Tory), 
not  named  in  Confiscation  Act, 
586. 

Gibbes,  William  Hasell,  member 
privy  council,  685. 

Gibbon,  John,  on  prison  ship,  3.59. 

Gibson,  Captain  (Md.),  wounded  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Giessendanner,  Captain  (Tory),  men- 
tioned, 495. 

Gilbert,  William,  Dunlap  left  wounded 
at  his  house,  19. 

Gilespie,  Captain,  romantic  story  in 
connection  with  Major  Dunlap's 
death,  19,  20. 

Gist,  General  Mordecai  (Md.),  men- 
tioned, 12;  commands  expedition 
in  defence  of  Combahee,  641,  642, 
643,  644,  645;  presses  on  to  Port 
Royal,  and  returns,  652;  enters 
Charlestown  on  its  evacuation, 
673. 

Glazier,  Lieutenant-Colonel  (Br.), 
commands  at  St.  Augustine,  375; 
exiles  memorialize  as  to  transporta- 
tion to  Philadelphia,  377. 

Glover,  Charles,  with  Hayne,  but  es- 
capes capture,  320. 


764 


INDEX 


Glover,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Glover,  Charles,  accompanies  Hayne, 
320. 

Goodman,  Benjamin,  killed  by 
"Bloody  Bill"  Cuniugham  at 
Hayes's  Station,  475. 

Goodman,  Captain,  North  Carolina, 
killed  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Goodwin,  Major,  seizes  Captain  Che- 
sliire,  Royal  militia,  627. 

Gordon,  Lieutenant,  rallies  survivors 
of  Washington's  command  at  Eutaw, 
454;  is  killed,  461. 

Gomell,  Sergeant,  Pennsylvania  line 
mutinies,  execution  of,  622,  623. 

Gould,  Lieutenant  (Md.),  killed  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Gould,  Colonel  Fasten  (Br.),  arrives 
at  Charlestown  with  reenforcements 
which  he  allows  to  disembark,  291 ; 
retains  command  of  troop,  306; 
mentioned  in  House  of  Lords  as  in 
command,  403,  407. 

Gowen's  Fort,  massacre  at,  477 ;  men- 
tioned, 551,  735. 

Graham,Captain  Joseph,  North  Caro- 
lina, mentioned,  1;  takes  part  in 
capture  of  picket,  122,  123. 

Granby  (Br.),  post  at,  229;  invested 
by  Sumter,  229,  230 ;  taken  by  Lee, 
236,  237,  238,  239;  mentioned,  279, 
446,  538,  551,  734. 

Graves,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Graves,  William,  on  prison  ship,  S58. 

Grayson,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Green,  Major  (Br.),  mentioned,  293,294. 

Green,  Captain  John  T.,  Marion  bri- 
gade mentioned,  101. 

Greene,  General  Nathanael,  appointed 
to  command  Southern  Department, 
2;  sketch  of,  2,  3,  4,  5;  appointed  at 
instance  of  Snutliern  delegates  in 
Congress,  6;  Washington's  instruc- 
tions to,  6,  7;  arrives  in  Philadel- 
phia, 7;  his  efforts  there  for  his 
command,  ibid. ;  proceeds  to  the 
South,  8;  appoints  his  staff,  8;  ap- 
proves position  at  Cheraw,  16,  17; 
mentioned.  26;  his  lack  of  apprecia- 
tion of  results  achieved  by  partisan 
leaders,  56;  his  character  and  con- 
duct, 58,  59;  his  singular  letter  to 


Sumter  on  assuming  command,  60, 

61, 62, 63,  64, 65  ;  his  letter  to  Morgan 
on  his  complaint  against  Sumter, 
67,  68,  69;  his  position  on  the  Pee 
Dee,  90;  learns  of  Cormvallis's  ad- 
vance, his  action  thereon,  93;  his 
ride  across  the  country,  94 ;  his  posi- 
tion at  Cheraw  considered,  95;  sug- 
gests to  Marion  attack  upon  Nelson's 
Ferry,  98;  letter  to  Sumter,  ibid.; 
mentioned,  99;  wi'ites  to  Sumter, 
104,  105 ;  appoints  Pickens  to  com- 
mand Whig  militia  in  North  Caro- 
lina, 120;  prepares  for  decisive 
action,  123;  sends  Pickens  to  South 
Carolina,  125,  126;  Sumter  sends 
letter  to,  by  Wade  Hampton,  159; 
question  as  to  his  credit  for  move- 
ments to  South  Carolina  after  battle 
of  Guilford  Court-house,  159,  160, 
161, 162 ;  letter  to  Sumter  informing 
him  of  his  proposed  movement  into 
South  Carolina,  163 ;  sends  letter  to 
Sumter  by  Hyrne,  166;  Hyrne's  re- 
port thereon,  and  Sumter's  reply 
misunderstood,  168;  misconceives 
condition  in  South  Carolina  and 
Sumter's  powers,  169;  criticises 
Sumter,  but  commends  Marion,  177; 
lukewarm  report  of,  in  regard  to 
Sumter  and  Marion,  to  Washington 
and  Reed,  178,  179,  180,  181;  his 
movement  back  to  South  Carolina, 
182;  receives  letter  from  Sumter, 
183 ;  letter  of  instructions  to  Sumter, 
184,  185;  approaches  Camden,  finds 
garrison  superior  to  his  force,  186; 
his  numbers,  186,  187;  advances  to 
Hobkirk's  Hill,  reconnoitres,  receives 
reenforcementsofartilleryand  North 
Carolinalevies,  188 ;  orders  Marion  to 
join  him,  ibid. ;  Rawdon  attacks  and 
defeats  him,  189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 1 94, 
195,  196:  letter  to  Reed  on  loss  of 
battle,  199,  200,  201 ;  summons  Sum- 
ter, Marion,  and  Lee  to  join  him, 
204;  contemplates  withdrawal  of  his 
army  to  Virginia,  205;  moves  to 
Rugeley's  Mill,  206;  thence  to  25 
Mile  Creek,  ibid.;  complaints  against 
Sumter,  209,  210,  211,  212,  213,  214; 
writes  to  Sumter,  215;  determines 


INDEX 


765 


to  abandon  the  campaign  in  South 
Carolina,  216;   question  as  to,  216, 
217,  218,  219,  220,  221,  222,  223,  224, 
225,  226,  227,  228;   want  of  horses, 
240 ;  letter  returning  Sumter's  resig- 
nation, 247,  248;    refuses  Sumter's 
advice  to  concentrate   and    attack 
Rawdon,  his  reasons  therefor,  252; 
same  considered,  253,  254;   decides 
to    move    against   Ninety  Six,   254, 
255;  looking  to  return  to  Virginia, 
257 ;  orders  Lee  to  Ninety  Six,  2()4 ; 
division  of  goods  talcen  by  Clarke, 
257;  his  orders  to  Sumter,  278,  279; 
conducts  siege  of  Ninety  Six,  279, 
303;  mentioned,  304,  305;  sends  Lee 
with  his  Legion  to  watch  Rawdon, 
307 ;  advances  to  Granby,  308 ;   de- 
termines to  strike  Rawdon,  ibid. ; 
but  fails  to  do  so,  309;  the  failure 
of  his  plan  discussed,  310,  311,  312; 
moves    against    Orangeburgh,    313, 
316 ;  retires  to  High  Hills  of  Santee, 
receives  communication  from  those 
on  prison  ships  held  as  hostages,  361 ; 
receives     information     of    Colonel 
Hayne's  execution,  399;  his  course 
thereon,  399,  400,  401 ;  in  his  camp 
of  repose,  413;    Shelby  and   Sevier 
start  to  reenforce  him,  but  fail  to  do 
so,  414 ;    conjures   other  causes  of 
complaint  against  Sumter,  415-433; 
resumes  offensive,  435;  is  joined  by 
Marion,  439 ;  his  saying  as  to  desert- 
ers from  the  respective  armies,  445 ; 
commands  at  battle  of  Eutaw,  446- 
463;   intends  to  renew  action,  but 
receives  intelligence  which  forbids, 
464 ;  retires  to  High  Hills  of  Santee, 
465;    receives   intelligence    of    sur- 
render  of   Yorktown,   and    applies 
to  Washington   for  cooperation   of 
French    fleet    in    the    recovery    of 
Charlestown,  481,  482;    determines 
to  cross  Congaree  and  move  against 
enemy,    484;   breaks    up    camp   on 
High  Hills  of  Santee,  moves  toward 
Four  Holes  Swamp,  486;  learns  of 
the  withdrawal  of    Shelby  and  Se- 
vier, 490;  leaves  army  under  Will- 
iams to   move  to  Four  Holes,  491 ; 
with  small  escort  advances  to  Dor- 


chester, 491 ;  finds  enemy  prepared 
for  him,  ibid. ;  addresses  Governor 
Rutledge  upon  subject  of  emploj'ing 
negroes  in  army,  499,  500;  arouses 
great  opposition,  500,  501 ;   forbids 
impressment  of  indigo  by  Lee,  520; 
cabal  with  Lee  against  Sumter,  cor- 
respondence,   531,    532,    533;    men- 
tioned,  538,  541,  542,  543,  546,  550, 
553;     Governor    Rutledge     in    his 
speech  to  Jacksonborough  legislature 
extols  his  conduct,  564;  how  far  en- 
titled to  sole  credit  for  redemption  of 
state,  567 ;  commissioners  appointed 
to  purchase  estate  for,  574;   styled 
"deputy  Saviour,"  575 ;  North  Caro- 
lina and  Georgia  make  grants  to, 
575 ;  the  shadow  of  the  Hunter,  Banks 
&  Co.   affair   arises,   ibid. ;    posted 
at  Round  0, 589 ;  his  correspondence 
with  Marion,   Horry,   and    Maham 
upon  controversy  between  Maham 
and  Horry  as  to  rank  and  command, 
595,  596,  597,  598,  599,  600;  decides 
against  Maham,  moves  from  Skir- 
ven's  plantation  to  Bacon's  bridge, 
612;     contemplates    move    against 
Charlestown,  ibid.;  appeals  to  Con- 
gress for  assistance,  614,  615;  com- 
plains to  Governor  Mathews  of  Mr. 
Hort,  commissary,  617,  618,  619 ;  has 
deeper  causes  of  anxiety ;  deplorable 
and  mutinous   condition  of    army, 
619,  620 ;  renewed  mutiny  of  Penn- 
sylvania    line,     621,     622;      Leslie 
addresses  Greene  on  subject  of  con- 
fiscation acts,  he  refers  him  to  Gov- 
ernor Mathews,    633;    action   upon 
Leslie's  proposition  for  leave  to  ob- 
tain supplies,  637;   reorganizes  his 
forces,  637,  638 ;  distress  at  death  of 
John    Laurens,  644,   645;   advances 
Pickens  to  Quarter  House,  652;  sets 
up  doctrine  of  postliminium  in  re- 
gard to  horses  recaptured,  (>62,  663, 
6(>4,  665,   6(56,   667;    enters  Charles- 
toT\Ti  on  its  evacuation,    673;    his 
connection  with  Banks  &  Co.'s  trans- 
actions, 677,  678,  679,  680,681,682; 
is  acquitted  by  Congress,  683,  684; 
mentioned,  687;   addresses  the  As- 
sembly upon  subject  of   repeal  of 


766 


INDEX 


act  granting  Congress  right  to  levy- 
certain  taxes,  G88, 689 ;  offence  taken 
thereat,  690;  "Hampden's"  letter 
in  reply  thereto,  690,  691, 692 ;  action 
of  Assembly  thereon,  693;  contro- 
versy with  Governor  Guerard  over 
Governor  Tonyn's  flag  or  embassy, 
694,  695,  696,  697,  698,  699 ;  his  army 
and  himself  become  unpopular,  699, 
700,  701,  702,  703;  Assembly  grants 
him  Boone's  Barony  and  negroes, 
which  he  accepts,  703;  removes  to 
Geovgisi,  ibid.;  his  death,  i6 id.;  men- 
tioned, 720,  722,  723,  724,  725,  726, 
727,  728,  729,  730,  731,  732,  735. 

Grey,  Captain,  affair  at  Dutchman's 
Creek,  126,  127. 

Grierson,  George,  ofWaxhaws(Tory), 
in  Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Grierson,  Colonel  (Tory),  defence  of 
Augusta,  268,  269,  270,  271;  mur- 
dered, 274. 

Grierson,  Fort,  at  Augusta,  siege  of, 
268,  269,  270. 

Grimball,  Major  Thomas,  member  of 
the  Jacksonborough  legislature,  557. 

Grimke,  Lieutenant-Colonel  John 
Faucheraud,  as  judge  presides  in 
case  under  "Sumter  law,"  145, 
146,  147;  imprisoned  by  British  on 
flimsy  pretence,  354 ;  organizes  party 
to  release  prisoners,  256,  257. 

Grindall's  Shoals,  Pacolet  River, 
Tarleton  outmanoeuvres  Morgan 
at,  30. 

Grott,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Guerard,  Benjamin,  on  prison  ship, 
359;  joins  in  reply  to  Balfour's  an- 
nouncement of  holding  prisoners  as 
hostages,  360;  member  privy  coun- 
cil, 572;  commissioner  on  behalf  of 
State  to  negotiate  agreement  to 
check  plunder  on  both  sides,  658, 
659;  chosen  governor,  685,  686;  con- 
troversy with  General  Greene  over 
flag  on  embassy  from  Governor 
Tonyn  of  Florida,  694,  695,  696,  697, 
698,699;  mentioned,  729,730. 

Guerard,  Peter,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Guest,  "William  (Tory) ,  in  Confiscation 
Act,  585. 

Guilford  Court-house,  Battle  of,  men- 


tioned, 125;  British  rejoicing  at 
Charlestown  upon  receipt  of  news 
of,  156 ;  Sumter  will  not  admit  de- 
feat, 157 ;  causes  assigned  by  Greene 
for  his  defeat  at,  157. 

Gun,  Captain,  case  of  using  horses 
belonging  to  public,  665. 

Gunby,  Lieutenant-Colonel  John 
(Md.),  at  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill, 
191,  192,  193;  court  of  inquiry  on, 
198;  Greene  puts  blame  of  loss  of 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill  on,  198, 199 ; 
mentioned,  539. 

Guristersigo ,  Indian  chief,  a  Creek, 
attacks  General  Wayne  in  Georgia, 
653. 

Gwyn,  boy  of  that  name  shoots  Lewis, 
a  Tory,  84. 

Habersham,  Major,  imprisoned  by 
British  on  flimsy  pretext,  354. 

Hadley,  Captain  Nola,  wounded  at 
Eutaw,  4G0. 

Haldane,  Lieutenant  (Br.),  at  siege  of 
Ninety  Six,  280. 

Hall,  George  Abbott,  receiver  for 
South  Carolina  quota  of  supplies, 
agent  of  Mr.  Morris,  financier  United 
States,  678 ;  General  Greene  requires 
him  to  assist  Banks,  678,  679. 

Halfway  Swamp,  affair  at,  100,  101, 
102,  103;  mentioned,  537,  538,  551. 

Hamilton,  Colonel  Alexander,  leads 
storming  party  at  York  town,  men- 
tioned, 497. 

Hamilton,  David,  in  prison  ship,  358. 

Hamilton,  Major  James,  Pennsylva- 
nia line,  commands  detachment  in 
expedition  against  John's  Island,  502, 
503,  504,  505,  506;  commands  party 
in  taking  possession  of  Charlestown 
on  its  evacuation,  672. 

Hamilton,  Major  John  (Tory),  not 
named  in  Confiscation  Act,  586. 

Hamilton,  Paul,  Harden  sends  to  in- 
vite Hayne's  cooperation,  133. 

Hammond,  Colonel  Le  Roy,  joins 
Pickens  in  rousing  people  of  Ninety 
Six,  262,  263;  mentioned,  514;  mem- 
ber of  Jacksonborough  legislature, 
559. 

Hammond,  Major  Samuel,  sent  to 
seize  General  Williamson,  21;  cap- 


INDEX 


767 


turesliim,  22;  joins  Pickens  in  rous- 
ing people  of  Ninety  Six,  2G2,  263 ; 
prisoners  taken  at  Augusta  put  in 
his  charge,  274,  275 ;  detached  with 
Pickens  against  Indians,  486 ;  men- 
tioned, 514,  537. 

Hammond,  Lieutenant,  wounded  at 
Eutaw,  461. 

Hammond's  Mill,  affair  at,  262. 

Hammond's  Store,  affair  at,  23,  24; 
mentioned,  54. 

"  Hampden,"  letter  of,  in  reply  to 
Greene's  communication  to  Assem- 
bly, 691,  692. 

Hampton,  Colonel  Henry,  mentioned, 
182,  229;  on  Sumter  expedition  to 
Low-Country,  322 ;  seizes  Four  Holes 
Creek,  327 ;  watches  Cruger's  move- 
ments, 331,  340;  mentioned,  421,  424, 
425,  514,  717. 

Hampton,  Major  John,  Colonel 
Richard  Hampton's  letter  to  him 
on  subject  of  reorganization  of 
militia,  144;  mentioned,  731. 

Hampton,  Colonel  Kichard,  his  letter 
to  Major  John  upon  subject  of  reor- 
ganization of  militia,  144;  men- 
tioned, 229;  take  part  in  Sumter 
expedition  to  Low-Country,  322 ;  is 
surprised  by  Cuningham,  490; 
mentioned,  551 ;  member  of  the  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  559;  men- 
tioned, 717,  731. 

Hampton,  Colonel  Wade,  first  men- 
tion of  his  joining  the  Whigs,  144, 
147 ;  his  case,  148, 149 ;  Sumter  sends 
letter  by,  to  Greene,  158 ;  affair  at 
Friday's  Ferry ,  209 ;  mentioned,  229 ; 
in  Sumter's  expedition  to  Low- 
Country,  322;  takes  British  guard 
at  Quarter  House,  327,  328,  329,  330 ; 
takes  part  in  battle  of  Quinby 
bridge,  332,  340;  mentioned,  364, 
380 ;  Sumter  leaves  in  command  of 
his  brigade,  415 ;  Colonel  Henderson 
supersedes,  415,  416  ;  mentioned,  421, 
425 ;  letter  of,  on  condition  of  country, 
425 ;  succeeds  to  command  of  Sum- 
ter's brigade  at  Eutaw,  453;  his 
conduct  thereat,  454,  457,  4(53 ;  men- 
tioned, 465;  in  command  of  cavalry, 
attacks  and  defeats  Loyalists  at  Dor- 


chester, 491 ;  keeps  open  communi- 
cation between  Sumter  and  Marion, 
493;  mentioned,  514,  538,  549;  mem- 
ber of  Jacksonborough  legislature, 
559;  mentioned,  725,  730,  731. 

Hamptons,  The,  mentioned,  1, 562, 574. 

Hancock,  Clement,  murdered  by 
"  Bloody  Bill"  Cuningham,  Hayes's 
Station,  475. 

Handy,  Captain  George,  Lee's  Legion, 
80. 

Hanging  Kock,  battle  at,  mentioned, 
53,  55,  57,  720,  735. 

Harden,  Colonel  William,  mentioned, 
99;  sketch  of,  129;  his  raid  into  the 
lower  part  of  the  State,  127,  128; 
Hayne  refuses  to  join  him,  133;  his 
letter  to  Marion  on  subject,  1-33, 134 ; 
captures  British  party  at  Four 
Holes,  134;  Barton's  post,  134; 
affair  with  Fenwick  on  Pocotaligo 
road,  134 ;  takes  Fort  Balfour,  135 ; 
his  successes,  136;  writes  again 
to  Marion  on  subject  of  Hayne 's 
position,  136;  mentioned,  150,  223; 
his  brilliant  strokes,  251 ;  his  move- 
ments, 257,  258;  Browne  attacks  him 
at  Wiggins's  Hill,  259,  260,  261,  263; 
at  Horseshoe  on  Ashepoo,  318;  men- 
tioned, 380;  informs  Greene  of 
Hayne's  execution,  399;  keeping 
watch  on  Edisto,  434;  mentioned, 
437 ;  pressed  by  British,  appeals  to 
Marion  for  assistance,  438 ;  Marion 
comes  to  his  help,  439;  mentioned, 
514 ;  resigns  because  superseded  by 
John  Barnwell,  520,  529;  mentioned, 
537,  544,  545;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough legislature,  558,  559;  men- 
tioned, 594,  723,  726. 

Hardman,  Major  Henry  (Md.),  com- 
mands Maryland  battalion  at  Eutaw, 
448. 

Hardy,  Lieutenant  Christopher,  mur- 
dered by  •'  Bloody  Bill  "  Cuningham 
at  Hayes's  Station,  475. 

Harleston,  Major  Isaac,  member  of 
the  Jacksonborougli  legislature,  558. 

Harleston,  Colonel  John,  in  Am- 
ercement Act,  .587. 

Harper,  Kobert  Goodloe,  mentioned, 
731. 


768 


INDEX 


Harris,  Thomas,  in  prison  ship,  358 ; 
takes  part  lu  battle  of  Eutaw,  574. 

Harrison,  Colonel  (Tory),  sent 

with  Watson  to  crush  Marion,  113; 
is  ambuscaded  at  Wiboo  Swamp, 
ibid. 

Harrison,  Colonel  Charles,  of  Vir- 
ginia, on  march  to  join  Greene,  188; 
on  Court  of  Inquiry  on  Colonel 
Gunby,  198. 

Harrison,  Governor  Benjamin  (Va.), 
receives  from  General  Scott  inter- 
cepted letters  of  Forsyth,  and  with 
council  informs  General  Greene  of 
discovered  conspiracy,  680,  682,  683. 

Hawes,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Samuel, 
of  Virginia,  at  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  191,  192,  194. 

Hayes,  Colonel  Joseph,  captures  Loy- 
alistsat  Williams's  plantation, 24, 25; 
massacred  by  "  Bloody  Bill ' '  Cuning- 
ham,  471,  474,475;  mentioned,  514. 

Hayes's  Station,  massacre  at,  473, 474, 
475 ;  mentioned,  551. 

Hayne,  Colonel  Isaac,  sketch  of,  130; 
his  case,  130,  131,  132;  refuses  to 
join  Harden,  133,  150  ;  takes  the 
field,  his  dash  to  Charlestown,  cap- 
ture of  Williamson,  is  himself  cap- 
tured, 318,  319,  320,  321;  mentioned, 
364,  380;  his  case,  trial,  and  execu- 
tion, 382-398;  Greene's  course  in 
regard  to  it,  399,  402 ;  its  considera- 
tion in  the  House  of  Lords,  England, 
402, 412 ;  effect  of  his  execution,  434 ; 
mentioned,  iCA],  544,  726. 

Heath,  General,  Washington  leaves  in 
command  of  New  York,  437. 

Henderson,  Colonel  William,  ex- 
changed and  released,  is  put  in 
command  of  Sumter's  brigade,  416; 
Sumter's  instructions  to  him,  416, 
417 ;  Greene  writes  to  him  to  disre- 
gard, 417,  418;  Sumter's  letter  to, 
421 ;  letter  of,  on  condition  of  Sum- 
ter's brigade,  426;  in  command  of 
same,  441 ;  commands  advance  at 
Eutaw,  his  troops  most  exposed, 
451;  is  wounded,  452,  4(j0,  461,  462; 
made  brigadier-general,  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  559 ; 
mentioned,  638,  653. 


Henry,  Jacoh,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Hervey,  William  H.,  on  prison  ship, 
;^9. 

Hessians,  numbers  of  desert  the  Brit- 
ish army  and  remain  in  Charlestown 
on  its  evacuation,  675. 

Heyward,  James,  on  prison  ship, 
358. 

Heyward,  Thomas,  Sr.,  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  558. 

Heyward,  Thomas,  Jr.  (signer  of 
Declaration  of  Independence),  as 
judge,  sits  in  trial  of  case  under 
Sumter's  law,  146,  147;  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  557. 

High  Hills  of  Santee,  description  of, 
119;  Sumter  retires  to,  119;  Marion 
and  Lee  at,  206;  Greene  retires  to, 
317;  establishes  at,  343;  styled 
Camp  of  Repose,  413-423. 

Hill,  Colonel  William,  mentioned,  1, 
424, 514 ;  member  of  Jacksonborough 
legislature,  559;  mentioned,  574, 717, 
731. 

Hillsboro,  N.  C,  Greene  arrives  at,  9; 
Governor  Rutledge  at,  139;  returns 
to,  509. 

Hobkirk's  Hill,  Battle  of,  188,  197; 
Greene's  want  of  horses  at,  240 ;  men- 
tioned, 546,  551,  553,  554,  724,  725. 

HoUoway,  Captain,  Anderson's  Regi- 
ment, killed  in  expedition  against 
Cherokees,  626. 

Holmes,  John  B.,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Holmes,  William,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Holmes,  Lieutenant,  wounded  at 
Eutaw,   461. 

Hood,  John  (Tory) ,  at  Hayes's  Station, 
473. 

Hood,  Sir  Samuel,  arrives  with  fleet 
for  evacuation  of  Charlestown,  657. 

Hornby,  William,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Horner's  Corner,  affair  at,  262;  men- 
tioned, 538,  551. 

Horry,  Colonel  Daniel,  name  found  in 
Amercement  Act,  587. 

Horry,  Colonel  Hugh,  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 82;  his  recapture  of  Conti- 
nental prisoners  the  year  before 
alluded  to,  84;  mentioned,  99;  de- 
spatched to  intercept  McLeroth,  104 ; 
mentioned,  119;  wounded  at  Eutaw, 


INDEX 


769 


401 ;  mentioned,  514 ;  member  of 
Jacksouborougli  legislature,  558 ; 
mentioned,  574,  718. 

Horry,  Colonel  Peter,  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 82  ;  his  affair  with  Gainey,  83, 
84;  colonel  of  one  of  Marion's  regi- 
ments, 99;  takes  part  in  ambuscade 
of  Watson  at  Wiboo  Swamp,  113; 
pursues  Watson,  117;  mentioned, 
119;  his  treaty  with  Gainey,  317, 
318;  takes  part  in  Sumter's  expedi- 
tion to  Low-Country,  and  battle  of 
Quinby  bridge,  322,  331,  342;  his 
treaty  with  Gainey,  mentioned,  4GG ; 
ordered  to  join  Marion,  484;  men- 
tioned, 514;  member  of  Jacksonbor- 
ough  legislature,  558;  mentioned, 
574 ;  Maham's  controversy  with  him 
as  to  rank  and  command,  595,  596, 
597,  598,  59<),  (500 ;  takes  position  at 
Wambaw,  602;  taken  sick,  retires 
to  his  plantation,  leaving  Colo- 
nel McDonald  in  command,  602; 
retires  from  the  field,  put  in  com- 
mand of  Georgetown,  608;  men- 
tioned, 718. 

Horseshoe,  Harden  establishes  camp 
at,  318;  Hayne  joins  him  there, 
ibid. ;  affair  at,  Hayne  captured 
at,  319:    mentioned,  551, 

Hort,  William,  Commissary,  617; 
Greene  dissatisfied  with,  617, 
618. 

Howard,  Colonel  John  Eager  (Md.), 
detailed  with  Continental  infantry 
to  Morgan's  command,  10;  takes 
part  in  battle  of  Cowpens,  47,  48; 
Congress  presents  him  with  medal, 
55;  at  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  193; 
at  battle  of  Eutaw,  448 ;  wounded  at 
EutaAv,  4()0. 

Howarth,  Colonel  Probart,  name  not 
in  Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Howe,  Lord,  mentioned,  712. 

Howe,  Sir  William,  mentioned,  97; 
through  his  influence  Balfour  at- 
tains his  position,  382;  mentioned, 
711,  712. 

Huck's  Defeat,  mentioned,  53,  559, 
717,  720,  737. 

Huger,  Daniel,  his  abandonment  of 
cause  and  taking  protection  referred 
VOL.  IV.  —  3d 


to,  508,  511 ;  not  named  in  Amerce- 
ment Act,  587. 

Huger,  General  Isaac,  commands 
troops  on  march  to  Cheraw,  16; 
Greene  leaves  to  conduct  army 
across  Cornwallis's  front,  94,  95; 
forms  junction  with  Greene  and 
Morgan,  121;  second  in  command 
at  Hobkirk's  Hill,  190, 191 ;  on  Court 
of  Inquiry  in  case  of  Colonel  Gunby, 
198;  letter  to  Sumter,  311,  312;  signs 
memorial  to  Greene,  urging  retalia- 
tion for  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne, 
400 ;  absent  from  Eutaw,  459 ;  mem- 
ber of  the  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture, 557;  mentioned,  721. 

Hughes,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Hugon,  Captain-Lieutenant  (Md.), 
wounded  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Huntington,  Earl  of,  speech  of,  upon 
Colonel  Hayne's  case,  in  House  of 
Lords,  402,  407. 

Hurd,  Captain  ,  Lee's  Legion,  80. 

Hutchinson,  Dr.  James,  Commissioner 
of  Pennsylvania  for  Carolinian  ex- 
iles in  Philadelphia,  379. 

Hutson,  Richard,  brother-in-law  of 
Colonel  Hayne,  mentioned,  383; 
member  of  Governor's  Council, 
511 ;  member  of  the  Jacksonbor- 
ough legislature,  557;  elected  lieu- 
tenant-governor, 571. 

Hutto,    (Tory),    captured    and 

made  to  lead  Butler  and  Watson, 
escapes,  627,  628. 

Hyrne,  Major  Edmund,  Commissary 
of  Prisoners,  relieves  Pickens  of 
those  taken  at  Cowpens,  92;  bears 
letter  from  Greene  to  Sumter,  165; 
mentioned,  166;  confers  with  Sum- 
ter and  reports  to  Greene,  l&S,  167 ; 
Greene  misunderstands,  168;  sent 
by  Greene  to  Sumter,  207,  208 ;  his 
excellent  management  in  execution 
of  cartel  for  exchange  of  prisoners, 
362, 363 ;  member  of  Jacksonborough 
legislature,  558. 

Impressments,  legislature  prohibits, 
616,  617. 

Innis  (should  be  spelled  Innes),  Col- 
onel Alexander,  name  not  in  Confis- 
cation Act,  585. 


770 


INDEX 


Irby,  Captain ,  Marion's  brigade, 

100. 

Irby,  Greaf,  massacred  at  Hayes's 
Station,  475. 

Irby,  Joseph,  massacred  at  Hayes's 
Station,  475. 

Irby,  Josepb,  Jr.,  massacred  at 
Hayes's  Station,  475. 

Irvine,  Dr.  Matthew,  surgeon  Lee's 
Legion,  80;  bears  letters  from  Lee 
to  Greene  suggesting  movement  into 
South  Carolina  after  battle  of  Guil- 
ford Court-house,  161,  219;  carries 
summons  to  McPherson  to  surren- 
der Fort  Motte,  234;  at  battle  of 
Quinby  bridge,  335. 

Irvine,  Major ,  Royal  militia, 

killed  at  Georgetown,  88. 

Izard,  Ralph,  envoy  abroad,  member 
of  Jacksonborough  legislature,  559; 
by  Tory  rumor  he  to  be  candidate 
for  governor  for  aristocratic  party, 
510,  511;  elected  to  Congress,  572; 
again,  685. 

Jackson,  Major  James  (Ga.),  joins 
Pickens,  262 ;  body  of  troops  raised 
by  him  destroyed  by  small-pox, 
414. 

Jacksonborough,  Governor  Rutledge 
determines  to  call  General  Assembly 
to  meet  at,  496;  army  moves  to 
cover,  501;  description  of,  560;  As- 
sembly convenes  at,  560,  561;  acts 
passed  by,  572,  573,  616. 

Jacoby,  Daniel,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

James,  Major  John,  of  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 99;  despatched  to  intercept 
McLeroth,  104;  takes  part  in  am- 
buscade of  Watson,  113;  in  conflict 
with  Watson  at  Mount  Hope,  115, 
116;  mentioned,  119;  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  558, 
559;  mentioned,  574;  takes  part  in 
fight  at  Wambaw,  602,  603,  604; 
mentioned,  718. 

James,  Robert,  mentioned,  639. 

Jarvis,  Lieutenant,  of  Provost  (Br.), 
389. 

Jefferson,  Governor  Thomas,  of  Vir- 
ginia, mentioned,  80. 

Jenkins,  Colonel  Joseph,  named  in 
Amercement  Act,  587. 


Johnson,  ,    a    Whig,    informs 

Marion  of  Lee's  return,  172. 

Johnson,  William,  mentioned,  56; 
released  from  St.  Augustine  joins 
his  family  in  Philadelphia,  378; 
member  of  the  Jacksonborough  legis- 
lature, 558. 

Johnson,  Hon.  William,  Jr.,  the  his- 
torian, sketch  of,  56. 

Johnson,  James,  British  commissioner 
to  negotiate  agreement  to  check 
plunder  on  both  sides,  658,  659. 

Johnston,  Captain  Peter,  lieutenant 
Lee's  Legion,  80 ;  letter  upon  subject 
of  Lee's  suggestion  of  movement 
into  South  Carolina  after  battle  of 
Guilford  Court-house,  161,  162,  219. 

Johnston,  Captain ,  of  Harden's 

corps  intercepts  enemy's  boats  on 
Savannah,  258,  259;  with  Harden  at 
Wiggins's  Hill,  259,  260. 

Jones,  Captain,  Royal  militia,  626 ;  sets 
fire  to  house  of  Colonel  Kolb,  636. 

Jones,  Lieutenant,  killed  at  Quinby 
bridge,  338. 

Jordon,  Lieutenant,  Lee's  Legion,  80. 

Jowitt,  Lieutenant  (Va.),  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  460. 

Julin,  George,  in  Confiscation  Act, 
585. 

Eean,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Kee,  Captain  Thomas,  detached  by 
Colonel  Hammond  to  attack  party 
of  Tories  at  Horner's  Corner,  262. 

Kellsal,  Colonel,  Royal  militia,  cap- 
tured by  Harden,  135. 

Kemp,  Lieutenant,  King's  Rangers. 

Kennon,  Henry,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Kent  Charles,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Kerr,  Captain  (Br.),  mentioned,  20, 
150,  279 ;  bears  flag  from  Governor 
Tonyn  of  Florida,  is  arrested  by 
Governor  Guerard,  controversy  over 
same,  6M,  695,  696,  697,  698. 

Kershaw,  Eli,  death  of,  mentioned, 
559. 

Kershaw,  Joseph,  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough legislature,  559. 

Kettle  Creek,  battle  of,  mentioned, 
22. 

King's  Mountain,  battle  of,  men- 
tioned, 19,  53,  55,  57,  553,  720,  736. 


INDEX 


771 


Kirkwood,  Captain  Robert  (Del.), 
takes  part  in  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill;  iu  battle  at  Eutaw,  44(3, 
454. 

Knyphausen,  Lieutenant  -  General 
(Br.),  mentioned,  714,  715. 

Kolb,  Colonel  Abel,  of  Marion's  bri- 
gade complains  of  Major  Siiipes,  147, 
514;  his  house  burned,  and  himself 
killed  by  Tories,  G38,  639. 

Eosciuszko,  Count,  recommends  posi- 
tion at  Cheraw,  15 ;  serves  as  engi- 
neer at  Ninety  Six,  281,  282;  selects 
position  for  army  at  Round  O,  492 ; 
succeeds  Laurens  in  confidential  ser- 
vices, 662;  expedition  to  James 
Island,  recaptures  horses,  ibid. 

Lacey,  Colonel  Edward,  mentioned, 
1,  54,  149,  229,  295;  in  Sumter's 
expedition  to  Low-Country,  322 ;  at 
battle  of  Quinby  bridge,  331-340; 
mentioned,  424,  514;  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  559, 
562;  mentioned,  717,  731. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  Washhigton 
directed  to  join  the  Southern  army, 
414 ;  his  movements  in  Virginia,  436, 
437 ;  Greene  writes  to  of  his  victory 
at  Eutaw,  465. 

Lamb,  Ensign,  North  Carolina, 
wounded  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Laurens,  Henry,  just  released  from 
the  Tower,  elected  member  of  the 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  537 ;  ex- 
changed for  Lord  Cornwallis  and 
engaged  negotiating  treaty  of  peace, 
636,  637 ;  sketch  of,  646 ;  member  of 
Congress,  685. 

Laurens,  John,  mentioned,  22 ;  returns 
to  South  Carolina,  496;  how  em- 
ployed during  his  absence,  496,  497 ; 
detachment  placed  under  his  com- 
mand, 497;  commands  expedition 
against  John's  Island,  502,  503,  504, 
505,  506;  elected  member  of  the 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  557 ; 
mentioned,  594;  his  command,  638; 
leaves  post  at  Wappoo  to  take  part 
hi  defence  of  Corabahee,  is  killed, 
641,  642,  643,  644,  645;  sketch  of, 
646,  647,  648,  649. 

Lawson's  Legion  of  Virghiia  proposed 


to  be  sent  to  South  Carolina,  but  dis- 
charged, 81. 

Lechmere,  Colonel  Nicholas,  captured 
by  Harden,  i;35. 

Lee,  Major  Henry,  ordered  to  join 
Greene,  7;  promoted  lieutenant- 
colonel,  8 ;  begins  his  march  to  South 
Carolina,  79;  account  of  his  corps, 
79.  80;  mentioned,  82;  arrives  at 
Greene's  camp,  ordered  to  join 
Marion,  85;  with  Marion  attempts 
Georgetown,  86,  87,  88;  moves 
against  Watson  at  Nelson's  Ferry, 
89;  mentioned,  93;  recalled  by 
Greene,  94;  mentioned,  98;  put 
under  command  of  Pickens,  122, 123 ; 
his  part  hi  Pyle's  defeat,  123,  124; 
question  as  to  his  suggestion  of 
movement  into  South  Carolina  by 
Greene,  discussed,  160,  161,  162; 
Greene's  letter  to  as  to  Sumter's 
forces,  167,  168;  returns  to  South 
Carolina  and  joins  Marion,  170,  171 ; 
ordered  to  cooperate  with  Marion  on 
British  posts,  171 ;  their  movements, 
171,  172 ;  investment  and  capture  of 
Fort  Watson,  172, 173, 174, 175 ;  ques- 
tion as  to  Marion's  command  of,  176, 
177;  mentioned,  183;  estimate  of 
American  force  before  Camden,  186; 
mentioned,  190;  Greene  summons 
to  join  him,  204;  hastens  to  do 
so,  but  order  countermanded,  205, 
206;  rejoins  Marion,  proceeds  with 
him  to  Black  River,  206;  mentioned, 
225;  entitled  to  credit  of  Greene's 
movement  into  South  Carolina,  226; 
but  not  to  operation  on  enemy's 
communications,  ibid.;  brilliant  suc- 
cesses of,  228,  229;  with  Marion  in- 
vests Fort  Motte,  230,  231,  232,  233, 
234;  captures  fort,  235;  attacks  Fort 
Granby  and  takes  it,  236,  237,  238, 
239 ;  want  of  horses,  240 ;  mentioned, 
251,  263;  despatched  by  Greene  to 
Ninety  Six,  264;  proceeds  from 
Ninety  Six  to  Augusta,  265;  joms 
Clarke  and  Pickens  at  Augusta,  266 ; 
his  relation  with  Pickens,  267 ;  takes 
part  in  siege  of  Augusta,  268,  269, 
270,  271,  272;  at  siege  of  Ninety  Six, 
281,  290,  292,  299,  300;    mentioned, 


772 


INDEX 


304;  Greene  sends  him  to  watch 
Rawdon,  307,  308,  309;  does  not  join 
Washington,  310 ;  summoned  to  join 
Greene,  313 ;  takes  part  m  Sumter's 
expedition  to  Low-Country,  323 ;  his 
relation  to  Sumter,  323,  324;  takes 
Dorcliester,  327 ;  raids  to  Quarter 
House,  329;  joins  Sumter,  330;  at 
battle  of  Quinby  bridge,  335,  336, 
337, 338, 339, 340,  (^1, 342 ;  mentioned, 
413 ;  letter  to  Greene  complaining  of 
Sumter,  428,  429;  mentioned,  431, 
432,  433 ;  to  cooperate  with  Hender- 
son, 434;  pushed  forward  to  watch 
Stuart's  movements,  438;  his  legion 
in  advance  at  Eutaw,  446, 448 ;  takes 
part  in  that  battle,  452,  453, 456, 459 ; 
detached  by  Greene,  464 ;  mentioned, 
497;  commands  detachment  in  ex- 
pedition against  John's  Island,  502, 
503, 604,  505,  506 ;  undertakes  to  im- 
press indigo,  Greene  forbids  it,  520 ; 
cabal  with  Greene  against  Sumter, 
correspondence,  530,  531,  532,  533; 
mentioned,  536,  545,  546,  547,  574; 
taking  offence  at  Laurens's  com- 
mand, retires  from  the  field,  594, 
619,  620;  mentioned,  724,  725,  726, 
727,  728,  736. 

Lee,  "Mr.  Lee's  plan"  (General 
Charles  Lee),  mentioned,  712. 

Lee,  Stephen,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Lee's  Legion,  organization  of,  79,  80; 
reorganization  of,  officers  of,  resign 
in  body,  620. 

Legare,  Samuel,  imprisoned  in  prov- 
ost, 3()9. 

Legare,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Leigh,  Sir  Egerton,  his  conduct  in 
Colonel  Hayne's  case,  395,  396. 

Leonard,  Captain,  killed  by  "Bloody 
Bill "  Cuningham  at  Hayes's  Station, 
475. 

Lesesne,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Leslie,  Major-General  Alexander 
(Br,),  Coniwallis  sends  for,  to  reen- 
force  him  in  South  Carolina,  9 ;  ar- 
rives at  Charlestown,  17 ;  advances  to 
join  Corn wallis,  26;  crosses  Catawba, 
and  joins  Coniwallis,  29 ;  mentioned, 
81,  90;  relieves  Stuart  of  com- 
mand   of    Charlestown,  492;    men- 


tioned, 495 ;  distressed  for  supplies, 
sends  out  raiding  parties,  589,  5<K); 
addresses  General  Greene  on  sub- 
ject of  Confiscation  Acts,  632; 
Greene  refers  him  to  Governor 
Mathews,  633 ;  proposes  cessation  of 
hostilities  and  leave  to  obtain  sup- 
plies, which  is  refused,  637 ;  prepares 
foraging  expedition  to  obtain  sup- 
plies, 640,  652;  mentioned,  657;  en- 
ters into  agreement  with  Governor 
Mathews  for  securing  property  on 
both  sides,  658,  659;  prepares  for 
evacuation  of  Charlestown,  670, 671 ; 
conducts  same,  672,  673. 

Lewis,  Captain (Tory),  shot,  84, 

Lewis,  Rev.  John,  exiled  to  St.  Augus- 
tine, prohibited  from  performing 
service,  372. 

Lihby,  Nathaniel,  on  prison  ship, 
358. 

Lincoln,  General  Benjamin,  Secre- 
tary of  War,  Greene  writes  to,  696 ; 
mentioned,  716. 

Lister,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Lloyd,  John,  member  privy  council, 
572. 

Lockhart,  Samuel,  in  prison  ship,  358; 
joins  in  reply  to  Balfour's  announce- 
ment of  holding  prisoners  as  host- 
ages, 360. 

Lovell,  Lieutenant ,  Lee's  Legion, 

80. 

Lowndes,  Rawlins,  mentioned,  587. 

Lunsford,  Lieutenant ,  Lee's  Le- 
gion, 80. 

Lush,  Adjutant,  killed  at  Eutaw,  461. 

Lushington,  Colonel  Richard,  com- 
mands post  at  Georgeto-wn,  677; 
grants  flag  to  John  Banks,  ibid. 

Luzonne,  Chevalier  de  la,  approves 
plan  of  cooperation  of  French  fleet 
to  recover  Charlestown,  481. 

Lybert.  Henry,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Lyles,  Colonel  James,  member  of  the 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  559. 

Lynch's  Creek,  affair  at,  110,  111; 
mentioned,  .551. 

Lynch,  Thomas,  Jr.,  plantation  of, 
raided  by  British,  641. 

Lynn,  Lieutenant  (Md.),  wounded  at 
Eutaw,  460. 


INDEX 


773 


Mc Arthur,  Major  Archibald,  71st 
Regiment  (Br,),  commands  garrison 
at  Nelson's  Ferry,  17 ;  surrenders 
to  Pickens  at  Cowpens,  50;  men- 
tioned, 52,  78;  reenforces  Rawdon, 
209,  252;  posted  at  Fair  Lawn,  435; 
Stuart  calls  him  up,  464. 

McBee,  Captain,  Sumter  sends  letter 
by  to  Greene,  158,  181. 

McCall,  Lieutenant-Colonel  James, 
mentioned,  1;  his  family  ill  treated 
by  Dunlap,  20;  sent  to  invite  the 
cooperation  of  Pickens,  21 ;  takes 
part  in  capture  of  Loyalists  at  Ham- 
mond's Store,  23;  his  party  at  battle 
of  Cowpens,  31,  32;  takes  part  in 
battle,  30,  40,  42;  captures  picket, 
121,  122;  with  Clarke  attacks  and 
defeats  Dunlap  at  Beattie's  Mill,  127, 
128;  mentioned,  223,  229;  his  death, 
258;  mentioned,  279,  7^3(3. 

McCauley,  Captain  James,  Marion's 
brigade,  82,  100 ;  takes  part  in  am- 
buscade of  Watson,  113;  at  battle 
of  Quinby  bridge,  335;  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  558. 

McCottry,  Captain  William,  Marion's 
brigade,  82,  99;  m  conflict  with 
Watson  at  Mount  Hope,  115,  116; 
takes  part  in  an  attack  upon  Doyle, 
118;  member  of  Jacksonborough 
legislature,  558;  mentioned,  574, 
718. 

McDonald,  Colonel  Adam,  of  Marion's 
brigade,  99,  514 :  left  in  command  of 
Marion's  brigade  is  attacked  by 
Colonel  Thompson  at  Wambaw  and 
defeated,  602,  603. 

McDonald,  Charles,  on  prison  ship, 
358. 

McDowell,  Major  Charles  (N.C.),  his 
command  at  Cowpens,  31,  32,  34,  38, 
42,  44;  mentioned,  553. 

McDowell,  Sergeant  James,  pursues 
and  bayonets  Gamey,  84,  85;  men- 
tioned, 446. 

McDowells,  Mr.,  mentioned,  1. 

McGurrie,  Lieutenant,  wounded  and 
taken  prisoner  at  Eutaw,  4(51. 

Mcintosh,  General  Lachlan,  com- 
plains of  conduct  of  fellow  prisoners, 
345. 


McJunkin,  Samuel,  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough legislature,  559. 

McJunkin,  Joseph,  mentioned,  599. 

McKay,  Lieutenant  James  (Br.),  de- 
fence of  Fort  Watson,  173,  174, 175. 

McKenzie,  Major,  president  of  court 
on  Colonel  Hayne,  390. 

McKinnon,  Captain (Br.),  remon- 
strates against  Browne's  cruelties, 
261. 

McKoy,  Captain,  of  Harden's  corps, 
intercepts  enemy  boats  on  Savannah, 
258;  takes  position  at  Mathews's 
Bluff,  repulses  party  sent  by  Browne 
to  dislodge  him,  259 ;  with  Harden 
at  WMggins's  Hill,  259;  returns  to  the 
Savannah,  262. 

McKoy,  Kannal,  hung  by  Browne,  261, 
262;  mentioned,  273. 

McKoy,  Mrs.,  mother  of  Rannal,  at- 
tempts to  save  her  sou,  261 ;  her 
address  to  Browne,  276. 

McLaughlan,  Lieutenant-Colonel, 
takes  the  field  with  Hayne,  319;  is 
killed,  320. 

McLaughlan,  Captain,  is  wounded, 
319,  320. 

McLeroth,  Lieutenant-Colonel  (Br.), 
assailed  by  INIarion,  101;  accepts 
proposition  of  Marion  for  combat 
by  picked  men,  103,  104;  his  charac- 
ter, ibid.;  escapes  Marion,  104;  men- 
tioned, 226,  251,  537,  538,  540, 
723. 

McLure,  Captain  John,  mentioned, 
717. 

McNeill,  Hector  (Tory),  organizes 
force  in  North  Carolina,  85;  cap- 
tures Governor  Burke  and  council, 
465,  466. 

McPherson,  Lieutenant  (Br.),  gallant 
conduct  in  defence  of  Fort  Motte, 
232,  233,  234,  235. 

McBea,  Mary,  abducted  by  Major 
Dunlap,  dies,  19,  20. 

Maham,  Colonel  Hezekiah,  of  Marion's 
brigade,  99;  device  of  tower  for 
capture  of  Fort  Watson,  174,  175; 
takes  part  in  Sumter  expedition  to 
Low-Country  and  battle  of  Quinby's 
bridge,  322,  327,  331,  334,  335,  aiO, 
342;    Washington   ordered    to    co- 


774 


INDEX 


operate  with,  434;  watches  Fair 
Lawn,  435,  437;  ordered  to  join 
Marion,  484 ;  at  affair  at  Fair  Lawn, 
488,  489 ;  mentioned,  514 ;  part  of  his 
newly  raised  horse  with  Richardson 
defeated  by  Coffin,  590,  591;  at- 
tempts to  raise  a  legion  for  conti- 
nental service,  595;  controversy 
with  Peter  Horry  as  to  rank  grow- 
ing out  of  same,  595,  596,  597,  598, 
599, 600 ;  detained  at  Jacksonborough 
as  member  of  Assembly,  attempts  to 
return  to  his  command,  but  too  late, 
his  command  is  attacked  and  dis- 
persed in  his  absence,  601,  602,  603; 
disastrous  result  of  controversy  with 
Horry,  606 ;  appointed  to  command 
a  new  regiment,  608;  captured,  and 
his  career  ended,  609;  mentioned, 
638 ;  his  command  consolidated  with 
that  of  Conyers,  640. 

Maham  tower,  device  of,  at  Fort 
Watson,  174,  175;  used  at  siege  of 
Augusta,  270,  271;  and  at  Ninety 
Six,  293,  294. 

Majoribanks,  Major  (Br.),  (pro- 
nounced Marshbanks),  at  Eutaw, 
444,  449,  452,  453,  454,  456,  457; 
fatally  wounded,  459;  his  death, 
459;  mentioned,  463. 

Malmedy,  Colonel  Francis,  Mar- 
quis de  France,  Greene  despatches 
to  North  Carolina  for  assistance, 
433;  commands  militia  of  North 
Carolina  at  Eutaw,  446 ;  his  position 
in  line,  448. 

Manchester,  Duke  of,  speech  of,  in 
House  of  Lords,  on  Colonel  Hayne's 
case,  404. 

Manning,  Lieutenant  Laurence,  Lee's 
Legion,  80;  wounded  at  Eutaw,  461. 

Manson,  sets  fire  to  Georgetown,  318. 

Mariette,  Abraham,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Marion,  General  Francis,  mentioned, 
1 ;  engaged  in  active  movements,  17 ; 
informs  Greene  of  Leslie's  arrival 
and  march  for  Camden,  18;  men- 
tioned, 36,  56 ;  his  raids  against  Brit- 
ish communication,  77,  78;  Greene's 
letter  to  him,  78;  his  commission  as 
brigadier-general,  82;  appoints  his 


staff,  ibid.;  receives  intelligence  of 
Tory  organization  under  Hector 
McNeill,  North  Carolina,  85;  Lee 
ordered  to  join  him,  85 ;  Lee  reaches 
his  camp,  86 ;  attempt  upon  George- 
town, 86,  87,  88;  with  Lee  moves 
against  Watson  at  Nelson's  Ferry; 
despatches  Postell  across  Santee  to 
Monck's  Corner,  99;  assails  McLe- 
roth  at  Halfway  Swamp,  100;  pro- 
posed combat  by  picked  men,  102, 
103;  McLeroth  escapes  him,  104; 
Watson  sent  to  crush  him.  111;  am- 
buscades Watson  at  Wiboo,  113; 
conflict  with  Watson  at  Mount  Hope, 
115,116;  at  Witherpoon's,  116;  pur- 
sues Watson  who  abandons  the  field, 
117;  attacks  Doyle,  defeats  and 
pursues  him,  118 ;  determines  to  re- 
treat to  North  Carolina,  119 ;  learns 
of  Lee's  return  to  South  Carolina, 
120 ;  mentioned,  137 ;  Governor  Rut- 
ledge  writes  him,  has  put  Sumter  in 
command  of  all  militia,  140;  Sumter 
appeals  to  him  for  conference,  140, 
141 ;  mentioned,  150 ;  his  action  upon 
British  seizure  of  Postell  under  his 
flag,  151,  152,  153,  154,  155;  men- 
tioned, 160;  Greene  sends  letter  in- 
forming him  of  movement  hito 
South  Carolina,  163;  mentioned, 
169;  joined  by  Lee,  170,  171;  or- 
dered to  cooperate  with  Lee  on  Brit- 
ish posts,  ibid.;  their  movements, 
171;  Marion  proposes  attack  upon 
Fort  Watson,  Lee  advises  against 
it,  171,  172;  his  corps  reduced,  173; 
investment  and  capture  of  Fort 
Watson,  173,  174,  175;  question  as 
to  his  command  of  Lee,  176,  177 ; 
Greene's  praise  of,  177,  178;  luke- 
warm report  of,  to  Washington  and 
Reed,  in  regard  to,  178,  179,  180, 
181 ;  Greene's  disparagement  of, 
in  letter  to  Reed,  202;  Greene 
congratulates  on  capture  of  Fort 
Watson  and  summonses  to  join 
him,  204;  order  countermanded, 
moves  to  High  Hills  of  Santee,  206; 
with  Lee  proceeds  to  Black  River, 
ibid. ;  Greene  complains  to  Sumter 
about  his  taking  horses,  210;  Wat- 


INDEX 


775 


son  eludes,  213,  214,  215 ;  mentioned, 
223,  225,  220,  227,  228;  brilliant  suc- 
cesses of,  229 ;  with  Lee  invests  Fort 
Motte,  230,  231,  232,  233,  'lU,  235; 
captures  fort,  235;  mentioned,  239; 
Greene's  calls  on  him  for  horses, 
240,  241;  Lee  complains  to  Greene 
on  subject,  which  results  in  Marion's 
tender  of  resignation,  241 ;  resigna- 
tion not  accepted,  242;  moves  to 
Monck's  Corner,  ibid. ;  mentioned, 
251,  263;  Greene  calls  upon  to  johi 
him,  286;  marches  to  Georgetown, 
286;  reports  to  Sumter  arrival  at 
Charlestown  of  reenforcements,  287, 
288,  289 ;  Greene  sends  order  to,  290 ; 
mentioned,  294,  298,  304;  prepares 
for  expedition  to  Low-Country,  307; 
joins  Washington,  312;  summoned 
to  join  Greene,  313;  his  treaty  with 
Gainey,  317,  318;  takes  part  in 
Sumter  expedition  to  Low-Country 
and  battle  of  Quinby  bridge,  322, 
343;  approves  Grimke's  plan  for 
release  of  prisoners,  256;  mentioned, 
380;  Greene  informs  him  of  Hayne's 
execution,  399;  mentioned,  413,  415, 
420,  421,  431,  432;  Colonel  Washing- 
ton ordered  to  cooperate  vdth,  434; 
watches  Fair  Lawn,  435, 437 ;  Harden 
appeals  to  for  assistance,  438 ;  pro- 
ceeds to  Harden's  assistance,  439; 
receives  thanks  of  Congress,  440 ;  re- 
turns to  Greene,  441 ;  takes  part  in 
battle  of  Eutaw,  446,  448,  450,  451, 
459;  detached  by  Greene,  464;  re- 
turns, 465;  mentioned,  466,  483; 
Shelby  and  Sevier  ordered  to  join, 
484;  checked  in  his  advance,  485; 
charged  with  guarding  left  of  army, 
486 ;  affair  at  Fair  Lawn ,  487, 488, 489 ; 
Stuart's  insolent  communication  to, 
489;  takes  part  at  Wadboo,  493; 
Wade  Hampton  keeps  conimunica- 
tion  between  him  and  Sumter,  ibid. ; 
brigade  reorganized  by  Governor 
Rutledge,  514;  mentioned,  520,  530, 
536,  537,  538,  545,  547,  553,  554 ;  mem- 
ber of  the  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture, 557;  his  course  therein  in  regard 
to  General  Greene,  167,  168;  House 
commends,  569 ;  mentioned,  574, 575 ; 


position  in  regard  to  Confiscation 
Acts,  582,  583;  retires  to  Wambaw, 
593 ;  attends  Jacksonborough  assem- 
bly, leaves  Peter  Horry  in  command 
of  his  brigade,  595;  correspondence 
with  Greene,  Maham,  and  Horry, 
upon  Maham's  claim  to  rank  and 
command  Horry,  596,  597,  598,  599, 
600;  learns  of  Thompson's  expedi- 
tions against  his  brigade,  but  de- 
tained at  Jacksonborough  about 
Confiscation  Act,  (301;  at  length  sets 
out  with  Maham  for  his  command, 
but  too  late,  brigade  surprised  and 
dispersed,  602,  603,  604;  disastrous 
result  of  his  detention  at  Jackson- 
borough, 606;  rallies  his  men  again 
around  him,  606 ;  Laurens  ordered 
to  his  support,  606;  retires  beyond 
Santee,  607;  recrosses,  637;  moves 
against  Tories,  who  again  rise  under 
Gainey,  638;  affair  with  them,  639; 
makes  new  treaty,  639 ;  makes  great 
march  to  Georgeto^ni,  640;  takes 
post  at  Wadboo,  641 ;  affair  at  Fays- 
soux's,  649,  650,  651;  his  warfare 
ends,  651 ;  mentioned,  718,  724,  727, 
728,  730,  733,  738. 

Marritt,  or  Merritt,  James,  seized  by 
Marion  in  retaliation  for  seizure  of 
Postell,  154,  155. 

Martin,  Captain  N.,  wounded  at  Eu- 
taw, 461. 

Mathews's  Bluff,  affair  at,  259. 

Mathews,  John,  General  Greene  ap- 
pointed Commander  Southern  De- 
partment at  instance  of,  6 ;  men- 
tioned, 495;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough legislature,  557;  elected 
governor,  572;  authorizes  truce 
with  Tories,  627;  General  Leslie 
addresses  him  on  subject  of  Con- 
fiscation Act,  633 ;  his  reply  thereto, 
633,  634,  6a5 ;  allows  Pickens  to  pro- 
ceed against  Cherokees  in  Georgia, 
654;  grants  permission  to  British 
merchants  to  remain  in  Charlestown 
after  evacuation,  657, 658 ;  enters  in- 
to agreement  with  General  Leslie  to 
secure  property  on  both  sides,  658, 
659,  6(!0 ;  agreement  evaded  by 
Leslie  is  put  an  end  to,  661 ;  enters 


776 


INDEX 


Charlestown  on  its  evacuation,  672, 
673. 

Maxwell,  Major  (Br.),  surrenders 
Fort  Grauby  to  Lee,  237,  238,  239; 
mentioned,  265,  737. 

Maxwell,  Captain,  of  company  in  ex- 
pedition against  Indians,  655. 

Maybank,  Colonel,  mentioned,  514. 

Mayson,  Major,  mentioned,  468. 

Meade,  George,  Commissioner  of 
Pennsylvania  for  Carolinian  exiles 
in  Philadelpiiia,  379,  380. 

Melton,  Captain  Jolin,  Marion's  bri- 
gade, takes  part  in  affair  at  Cypress 
Swamp,  440. 

Merchants,  British,  allowed  permis- 
sion to  remain  in  Charlestown  after 
evacuation,  657,  658. 

Meyer,  Philip,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Michael,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Middleton,  Arthur  (signer  of  Declara- 
tion of  Independence) ,  senator  from 
St.  Philip's  and  St.  Michael's,  557; 
elected  delegate  to  Congress,  572. 

Middleton,  Hanry,  mentioned,  587. 

Middleton,  Hugh,  attacked  and  de- 
feated by  Hezekiah  Williams,  476 ; 
member  of  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture, 559. 

Middleton,  Lieutenant  John,  Lee's 
Legion,  80;  volunteers  upon  special 
service,  623. 

Middleton  Place,  army  at,  669. 

Milbin,  John,  killed  by  "  Bloody  Bill  " 
Cuningham  at  Hayes's  Station, 
475. 

Militia,  none  in  South  Carolina,  be- 
cause no  government  in  existence, 
place  supplied  by  partisans,  137, 138, 
139;  Governor  Rutledge's  efforts 
to  reorganize,  139,  140,  141;  Sum- 
ter's letters  to  Marion  on  subject, 
142,  143;  Hampton's  letter  on  same, 
144;  "Sumter's  law"  on  same,  145, 
146,  147,  148;  Greene's  misconcep- 
tion in  regard  thereto,  170. 

Miller,  Samuel,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Miller,  Lieutenant,  of  Virginia, 
wounded  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Milner,  Solomon,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Milvin,  John,  killed  at  Hayes's  Sta- 
tion, 475. 


Minott,  John,  Sr.,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Minott,  John,  Jr.,  on  prison  sliip,  359. 

Mitchell,  Captain  Thomas,  meml)er 
of  Jacksonborough  legislature,  558. 

Mobley  (Tory)  Settlement,  Sumter 
raids,   207. 

Monck,  George,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Monck's  Corner,  Postell  sent  by  Mar- 
ion to,  100,  101 ;  Kawdon  falls  back 
to,  250;  remains  at,  285,  302;  Colo- 
nel Coates  (Br.),  sent  with  regiment 
to,  325;  Sumter  advances  upon, 
327;  Coates  crosses  from  to  Biggin 
Church,  331 ;  Rawdon  moves  below, 
341 ;  affair  at,  mentioned,  551. 

Moncrief ,  Colonel (Br.),  on  evacu- 
ation carries  off  negroes,  661,  674. 

Moncrief,  John,  on  prison  ship,  358. 

Montagu,  Lord  Charles  Greville,  ar- 
rives in  Charlestown,  350 ;  attempts 
to  seduce  prisoners  from  their  alle- 
giance, 350 ;  his  correspondence  with 
Moultrie,  352,  353. 

Montgomery,  Colonel,  mentioned, 
704. 

Moore,  Lieutenant,  of  Maryland, 
wounded,  667. 

Moore,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Stephen, 
on  prison  ship,  360 ;  joins  in  reply  to 
Balfour's  announcement  of  holding 
prisoners  as  hostages,  3(50. 

Moore,  Captain,  imprisoned  in  prov- 
ost, 369;  wounded  at  Eutaw,  461. 

Moore,  Major,  defeated  by  General 
Cuningham,  485. 

Moore,  Ensign  (Md.),  wounded  at  Eu- 
taw, 460. 

Moore,  Ensign  (N.  C),  wounded  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Moore's  Surprise,  485;  mentioned, 
551. 

Morris,  Major  Lewis,  Jr.,  aide-de- 
camp  to  General  Greene,  8. 

Morris,  Eohert,  financial  agent  of 
Congress,  his  plan,  518;  Governor 
Rutledge  recommends  it,  519,  520 ; 
mentioned,  678,  680,  683;  letter  of 
Greene  to,  690. 

Morgan,  General  Daniel,  arrives  at 
Hillsboro,  Gates  organizes  inde- 
pendent corps  for  his  command, 
10,  11;  promoted  brigadier-general, 


INDEX 


777 


11;  despatched  to  threaten  Corn- 
wallis  at  Winnsboro,  given  com- 
mand west  of  the  Catawba,  16; 
crosses  the  Catawba,  takes  part  at 
Grindall's  Shoals,  23,  26,  27;  out- 
manajuvred  by  Tarleton,  abandons 
Grindall's  Shoals,  30 ;  fights  and  wins 
the  battle  of  Cowpens,  33,  51 ;  Con- 
gress presents  him  with  medal,  55 ; 
clash  of  authority  with  Sumter,  57, 
58;  mentioned,  65;  Greene's  letters 
to  him,  66;  his  complaint  against 
Sumter,  66,  67 ;  same  considered,  68, 
69,  70,  71,  72,  73,  74,  75,  76,  77 ;  men- 
tioned, IX) ;  his  march  from  Cowpens 
to  Gilbertown,  91 ;  Greene  goes  to 
consult,  94;  mentioned,  95;  retires 
from  the  field,  120;  mentioned,  279, 
324,  541,  550,  721,  722. 

Morgan,  Captain  Simeon  (Va.),  at 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  191; 
wounded  at  Eutaw,  460. 

Mosse,  George,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Motte,  Colonel  Isaac,  member  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  senator 
from  St.  Philip's  and  St.  Michael's, 
557. 

Motte,  Jacob,  mentioned,  233. 

Motte,  Rebecca,  her  patriotic  conduct 
at  siege  of  Fort  Motte,  furnishes 
arrows  to  burn  her  house,  233,  234. 

Motte,  Fort  (Br.  post),  mentioned, 
220;  investment  and  capture  of,  231, 
232,  233,  234,  235,  239;  mentioned, 
551,  724. 

Moultrie,  John,  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  East  Florida,  his  conduct  to 
exiles,  372. 

Moultrie, General  William,  quartered 
as  prisoner  at  Snee  Farm,  345; 
correspondence  with  Cornwallis  and 
Balfour  in  regard  to  treatment  of 
prisoners,  346,  347,  348;  Balfour's 
proposition  to  his  son,  351;  Mon- 
tagu's letter  to  him,  352;  his  reply, 
352,  353,  354;  correspondence  with 
Balfour  on  subject  of  arrest  of 
Grirake  and  Habersham,  355,  356; 
learns  of  cartel  for  exchange  of 
prisoners,  3.56;  mentioned,  557; 
member  of  Jacksonborough  legis- 
lature,   557:    correspondence    with 


Charles  Pinckney  mentioned,  587; 
exchanged  for  General  Burgoyne, 
668;  his  account  of  his  journey 
home  and  to  the  army,  668,  669; 
enters  city  on  its  evacuation,  673; 
his  account  of  same,  673,  674;  on 
committee  in  regard  to  impress- 
ments, 687. 

Moultrie,  Fort,  victory  of,  mentioned, 
711,  735. 

Moultrie,  Mr.,  Balfour  attempts  to 
approach  General  Moultrie,  his 
father,  through  him,  355. 

Mount  Hope,  affair  at,  115;  men- 
tioned, 171,  537,  538,  551,  723. 

Mud  Lick,  alTair  at,  115;  mentioned, 
538,  551. 

Musgrove  Mill,  Battle  of,  mentioned, 
53,  57. 

Mutiny,  Pennsylvannia  Line,  619, 
620,  621,  622,  623. 

Mydelton,  Colonel  Charles  S.,  men- 
tioned, 229;  in  command  of  Sumter's 
brigade  at  McCord's  Ferry,  294; 
reports  advance  of  British,  295 ; 
attacks  Raw^don's  rear,  is  ambus- 
caded by  Coffin  and  defeated,  298; 
mentioned,  310;  in  Sumter's  expe- 
dition to  the  L(3W-Country,  322,  340 ; 
mentioned,  425 ;  at  battle  of  Eutaw, 
452;  wounded,  461;  (name  in  list 
misspelled,  Middleton)  mentioned, 
514;  his  ambuscade  mentioned,  551. 

Nash,  Abner,  Governor  of  North 
Carolina,  mentioned,  9. 

Neel,  Colonel  Andrew,  mentioned, 
717. 

Neil,  John,  murdered  at  Hayes's  Sta- 
tion, 475. 

Nelson's  Ferry,  post  established  at, 
18;  Marion's  movements  against, 
99,  100,  101 ;  Balfour  meets  Rawdon 
at,  249;  Rawdon  crosses,  252; 
affair  at,  mentioned,  720,  724. 

Neufville,  John,  released  from  St. 
Augustine,  chief  of  party  on  voyage 
to  Philadelphia,  377;  member  of 
the  Jacksonborough  legislature, 
357. 

Neufville,  John,  Jr.,  on  prison  ship, 
350. 

Neufville,  William,  on  prison  ship,  359. 


778 


INDEX 


Newmarsh,  Major  (Br.),  mentioned, 
52. 

Newton,  Downham,  captain  of  vessels, 
bearing  exiles  to  Philadelphia,  rec- 
ognized by  Johnson,  378. 

Neyle,  Philip,  death  of,  alluded  to, 
plantation  of,  raided  by  British,  641. 

Ninety  Six,  men  of,  urged  to  re- 
sume arms,  18;  mentioned,  22,  24; 
Morgan  threatens,  26,  27;  men- 
tioned, 32 ;  men  of,  under  Pickens, 
34;  Pickens  at,  129,  130,  149;  men- 
tioned, 170,  185,  254,255;  despatches 
to  Cruger  to  abandon,  mtercepted, 
256;  Greene  determines  to  move 
against,  256,  257;  mentioned,  263; 
siege  of,  278-300;  mentioned,  307, 
551,  734. 

Ogier,  Lewis,  Marion's  staff,  82. 

Oglethorpe,  mentioned,  704. 

Oldfield,  James,  Greene  camps  on  his 
plantation,  343. 

Oldfield,  Captain,  Royal  militia,  nego- 
tiates truce  on  part  of  Tories,  626, 
627. 

Oldham,  Captain  (Va.),  killed  at  Eu- 
taw,  460. 

Oliphant,  Dr.  David,  surgeon-general, 
member  of  the  Jacksonbo  rough 
legislature,  557. 

O'Neill  (or  O'Neale),  Ferdinand, 
Lee's  Legion,  80;  at  battle  of  Quin- 
by  bridge,  335 ;  volunteers  to  watch 
movement  of  enemy,  623;  is  at- 
tacked at  Dorchester  and  defeated, 
623,  624. 

Orangeburgh  (Br.  post),  fall  of,  229, 
230,  239;  mentioned,  537,  538,  551, 
724. 

Owen,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Owen,  Captain,  killed  by  "  Bloody 
Bill"  Cuningham  at  Hayes's  Sta- 
tion, 475. 

Owens,  domestic  servant,  Greene's 
headquarters,  tried  for  mutiny,  623. 

Palmer,  Job,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Parker,  Sir  Peter,  mentioned,  711. 

Parker,  William,  commissioner  of 
the  treasury,  572. 

Parker's  Ferry,  affair  at,  439. 

Partisan  Bands,  supply  place  of  niili- 

'  tia,   137,   138,   139,  170;   absent    on 


the  reoccupation  of  Charlestown  on 
its  evacuation,  674. 

Patterson,  General,  his  assurance  to 
Colonel  Hayne,  132;  commandant 
of  Charlestown,  367. 

Peace,  approach  of,  035,  63(5. 

Pearis,  Captain  Richard  (Tory),  men- 
tioned, 549. 

Pegee  (Pegue  ]),  Captain,  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  461. 

Pegues,  Claudius,  cartel  for  general 
exchange  of  prisoners  executed  at 
his  house,  356. 

Pendleton,  Judge  Henry,  presides  as 
judge  in  case  under  Sumter's  law, 
146,  147 ;  a  prisoner  escapes,  345 ;  his 
case,  346. 

Pendleton,  Nathaniel,  aide-de-camp 
to  General  Greene,  8;  reconnoitres 
position  at  Ninety  Six,  282. 

Pennsylvania  Line,  arrival  of,  593; 
mutiny  in,  620,  621,  622,  623. 

Peronneau,  Henry,  Loyalist,  men- 
tioned, 387. 

Peronneau,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Henry,  her 
interview  with  Rawdon  appealing 
for  Colonel  Hayne,  387;  her  appeal 
to  him,  393,  394,  395. 

Perry,  Captain,  killed  at  Quinby 
bridge,  338. 

Peters,  domestic  servant  Greene's 
headquarters,  tried  for  mutiny,  623. 

Philips,  General  (Br.),  takes  the 
place  of  Leslie  in  Virginia,  93. 

Philips,  Lieutenant-Colonel  John 
(Tory),  not  named  in  Confiscation 
Act,  586. 

Pickens,  Andrew,  his  honorable  con- 
duct in  regard  to  his  parole,  18 ;  his 
plantation  plundered,  regards  him- 
self released  therefrom,  19,  20; 
takes  the  field,  21 ;  assumes  com- 
mand, 21;  great  accession  to  the 
American  cause,  22,  23;  joins  Mor- 
gan, ibid.;  strength  of  his  party,  32 ; 
takes  part  in  battle  of  Cowpens,  38, 
39,  40,  42,  45 ;  receives  the  sword  of 
Major  McArthur,  50 ;  Congress  pre- 
sents him  with  a  sword,  55 ;  Morgan 
leaves  him  in  charge  of  prisoners,  91 ; 
his  movements,  91,  92 ;  Greene  rides 
to  consult,  94;    joins  Greene,  120; 


INDEX 


779 


appointed  brigadier-general,  com- 
mands Nortli  Carolina  Whigs,  121 ; 
detaches  McCall  to  attack  British 
picket,  121 ;  Greene  visits  his  camp, 
122;  Lee  put  under  his  command, 
duty  assigned  him,  123;  attacks  and 
cuts  to  pieces  Pyle's  party,  123,  124, 
125;  ordered  to  repair  to  western 
part  of  South  Carolina,  126 ;  bia-affair 
at  Dutchman's  Creek,  12(j,  127 ; 
joined  by  Colonel  Clarke,  detaches 
Clarke  and  McCall  to  attack  Dun- 
lap,  127;  mentioned,  137,  1(50,  104, 
165,  169,  182;  Sumter  reports  had 
joined  him,  but  without  men,  185; 
mentioned,  202,  223,  226,  229,  258; 
engaged  since  his  return  from  North 
Carolina  rousing  his  people,  262 ; 
manoeuvring  between  Augusta  and 
Ninety  Six,  263;  joins  Clarke  at 
Augusta,  266 ;  his  relations  with  Lee, 
267 ;  command  at  siege  of  Augusta, 
269, 270,  271,  272,  273;  his  report  and 
action  upon  murder  of  Grierson, 
274,  275;  mentioned,  286;  Greene 
appeals  to,  to  join  him,  286;  joins 
Greene  at  Ninety  Six,  296;  men- 
tioned, 364;  takes  command  of  all 
state  troops,  438 ;  at  Eutaw  in  com- 
mand of  all  South  Carolina  troops, 
441,  446,  451;  im^ntijjned,  459; 
wounded,  461,  462 -vjcl^patched  to 
put  dovm  Indians,  484;  men- 
tioned, 510;  brigade  reorganized 
by  Governor  Rutledge,  514;  men- 
tioned, 547;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  559,  562;  House 
commends  his  conduct,  569 ;  marches 
against  Cherokees,  624,  625;  ad- 
vances to  Quarter  House,  652,  653; 
conducts  a  last  expedition  against 
Cherokees,  653,  654,  655;  makes 
treaty  with  them,  655,  656;  men- 
tioned, 725.  728,  733,  7;56,  738. 

Pierce,  William,  Jr.,  aide-de-camp  to 
General  Greene,  8;  writes  to  Sum- 
ter, 207. 

Pinckney,  Colonel  Charles,  men- 
tioned, ;>45;  his  al)andonment  of 
cause  and  taking  protection  referred 
to,  508-511;  named  in  Amercement 
Act,  587. 


Pinckney,  Charles,  Jr.,  on  prison  ship, 
359;  joins  in  reply  to  Balfour's 
announcement  of  holding  prisoners 
as  hostages,  360. 

Pinckney,  Charles  Cotesworth,  quar- 
tered as  prisoner  at  Snee  Farm, 
345;  eiTorts  made  to  seduce  from 
his  allegiance,  354 ;  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough.legislatnre,557 ;  his  opin- 
ion on  doctrine  of  postliminium  as 
applied  to  horses  recaptured,  666, 667. 

Pinckney,  Mayor  Thomas,  mentioned, 
233 ;  eiforts  made  to  seduce  from  his 
allegiance,  354 ;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  557. 

Plummer,  Major  Daniel  (Tory),  not 
named  in  Confiscation  Act,  58G. 

Pocotaligo,  affair  at,  34. 

Pocotaligo  (Fort  Balfour),  Harden 
takes,  134;  mentioned, 537  (misstated 
in  text  as  in  Colleton  —  should  be 
Beaufort) . 

Police,  British  Board  of,  139,  365. 

Polk,  Colonel  "William,  declines  longer 
to  act  as  commissary,  13. 

Polk,  Colonel  Thomas,  at  battle  of 
Eutaw,  452. 

Polk,    Lieutenant    ,    killed    at 

Eutaw,  461. 

Porter  against  Dunn,  case  of,  involv- 
ing "  Sumter's  law,"  145,  146,  147. 

Porterfield,  Colonel,  mentioned,  11. 

Postell,  Colonel  James,  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 82;  sent  to  Black  River,  83; 
captures  Captain  De  Peyster,  ibid. ; 
Marion  sends  him  to  Wadboo  and 
Monck's  Corner,  where  he  captures 
prisoners  and  supplies,  99, 101 ;  men- 
tioned, 119;  elected  member  of  the 
Jack  sonbo  rough  legislature,  557, 
558. 

Postell,  Captain  John,  Marion's  bri- 
gade, 82;  sent  by  Marion  across 
Santee  to  Monck's  Coraer,  100, 101 ; 
is  seized  by  British  while  under  a 
flag  from  Marion,  his  case  like  that 
of  HayTie,  1.50, 151,  L52, 153,  154, 155; 
his  case  delays  exchange  of  pris- 
oners, 364 ;  his  case  mentioned,  409, 
514. 

Postells,  The,  mentioned,  101, 537, 554, 
574. 


780 


INDEX 


Postliminium,  doctrine  of,  and  action 
of  Greene  thereon,  662,  663,  664,  665, 
666. 

Potterfield,  Captain,  (N.C.),  killed  at 
Eutaw,  400. 

Potts,  Captain,  Marion's  brigade,  100. 

Power,  Lieutenant  Robert,  Lee's  Le- 
gion, 80. 

Poyas,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Pringle,  John  Julius,  argument  of,  in 
case  of  Porter  against  Dunn,  146. 

Prioleau,  Philip,  on  board  prison  ship, 
359 ;  clerk  of  the  Senate,  562. 

Prisoners,  British,  treatment  of,  344 ; 
cartel  for  exchange  of  executed,  356 ; 
the  workings  of,  362;  Hyrne's  con- 
duct in  regard  to,  362,  363,  364;  ex- 
changed, 380. 

Pritchard,  the  prisoner  in  provost,  369. 

Provost,  prison  in  Exchange  (Old 
Post  Of&ce),368;  prisoners  confined 
in  it,  368,  369. 

Purvis,  Captain  John,  mentioned,  229. 

Pyles,  Colonel,  defeat  of,  123,  124, 
125. 

Quarter  House,  taken  by  Wade  Hamp- 
ton, 327,  328;  also  by  Lee,  329;  men- 
tioned, 551. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  mentioned,  367. 

Quinby  Bridge,  battle  of,  322-343; 
mentioned,  420,  544,  551,  725. 

Kadcliffe,  Captain  William,  killed, 
472. 

Ramsay,  Dr.  David,  Hayne  com- 
municates to  him  reasons  for  his 
course,  383;  member  of  Privy 
Council,  511;  member  of  the  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  557;  elected 
delegate  to  Congress,  572. 

Ravenel,  Daniel,  plantation  of,  men- 
tioned.   See  Wantoot. 

Rawdon,  Lord  Francis,  question  with 
Balfour  as  to  command,  96,  97; 
mentioned,  98 ;  marches  to  relief  of 
Fort  Granby,  attacked  by  Sumter, 
106;  determines  to  crush  Marion, 
111 ;  detaches  Captain  Grey  to  Dutch- 
man's Creek,  126;  mentioned,  137; 
reenforced  by  Eraser,  164,  186;  re- 
ceives information  of  Greene's  ap- 
proach, 186 ;  estimate  of  his  strength, 
187,    188;    assumes    the    offensive, 


attacks  and  defeats  Greene  at  Hob- 
kirk's  Hill,  189,  190,  191,  192,  193, 
194,  195,  196;  reports  to  Cornwallis 
Watson's  arrival  at  Camden,  215; 
disapproves  of  station  at  Camden, 
225 ;  appreciation  of  work  of  parti- 
san bands,  revolt  after  his  victory, 
abandons  Camden,  227,  228;  prepa- 
rations therefor,  228;  Balfour 
meets  him  at  Nelson's  Ferry  with 
report  of  rising  of  the  country,  249; 
joined  by  McArthur,  determines  to 
endeavor  to  check  operations  of 
enemy,  250;  mentioned,  252;  directs 
the  abandonment  of  Ninety  Six,  255, 
256 ;  his  despatches  intercepted,  255, 
256,  263;  mentioned,  280,  285; 
marches  for  relief  of  Ninety  Six,  292 ; 
passes  Orangeburgh  and  Granby, 
296,  297;  recovers  the  country 
wrested  from  him,  304 ;  mentioned, 
307 ;  falls  back  to  Orangeburgh,  310 ; 
Stuart  joins  him  at  Orangeburgh, 
313;  estimate  of  his  force,  316; 
moves  from  Orangeburgh,  341;  his 
connection  with  the  case  of  Colonel 
Hayne,  382-399;  his  conduct  in  re- 
gard to  it  discussed  in  House  of 
Lords,  402-^12;  sails  for  Europe, 
424;  mentioned,  444;  on  his  voyage 
to  England  is  captured,  466;  ex- 
changed for  Governor  Burke,  ibid.; 
mentioned,  537,  539,  540,  541,  542, 
543,  544,  546,  721,  722,  723,  724,  725, 
726. 

Rawdon  Town,  Tory  refugees  estab- 
lished at,  228. 

Ra wis,  William,  wounded  at  Wiggins's 
Hill,  260. 

Rawls,  Colton,  wounded  at  Wiggins's 
Hill,  260. 

Read,  Jacob,  imprisoned  at  St.  Augus- 
tine, 371 ;  member  of  privy  council, 
685. 

Read,  Captain,  of  Hampton's  regi- 
ment, encounters  and  defeats,  Brit- 
ish patrol  at  Quarter  House,  328. 

Read,  Colonel,  of  North  Carolina,  at 
battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  191.      • 

Reed,  Colonel  Joseph  (Pa.),  usually 
mentioned  as  governor,  Greene's  let- 
ters to,  59,  179,  180,  181. 


IKDEX 


781 


Reed,  George,  hung  by  Browne  at 
Wiggins's  Hill,  2(51. 

Repose,  Camp  of,  Greene  establishes 
at  High  Hills  of  Santee,  413,  423. 

Rhody,  Daniel,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Richardson,  General  Richard,  men- 
tioned, 58. 

Richardson.ColonelRichard,  Marion's 
brigade,  514;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  559;  Coffin  at- 
tacks and  defeats  him  at  Videau's 
bridge,  590,  591. 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  his  pusillanimous 
conduct  in  regard  to  the  case  of 
Colonel  Hayne,  408. 

Righton,  Joseph,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Ritchie,    Captain    ,     killed    by 

"  Bloody  Bill  "  Cuningham,  409. 

Roberts,  Colonel  Owen,  death  of,  re- 
ferred to,  649. 

Robins,  Lieutenant,  Loyalist,  cap- 
tures Colonel  Maham,  609. 

Robinson,  Joseph  (Tory),  mentioned, 
359,  549. 

Rochambeau,  Count  de,  arranges 
with  Washington  for  campaign,  436 ; 
mentioned,  498, 545. 

Roche,  Mr.  Patrick,  plantation  of, 
near  Eutaw,  mentioned,  450. 

Rocky  Mount,  affair  at,  mentioned, 
720. 

Roebuck,  Benjamin,  routes  party  of 
the  enemy  at  Mud  Lick,  114,  514. 

Rooney,  Lieutenant  (Tory) ,  killed  at 
Ninety  Six,  300. 

Round  0,  Greene's  army  takes  posi- 
tion at,  492,  493,  494 ;  army  moves 
from,  to  Jacksonborough,  501. 

Roupell,  George,  postmaster  under 
Royal  government,  name  not  in  Con- 
fiscation Act,  585. 

Rudulph,  Major  John,  80 ;  despatched 
by  Lee  to  Ninety  Six,  information 
oljtained  by  him  forwarded  to 
Greene,  265;  captures  Fort  Gal- 
phin,  266 ;  takes  part  in  the  siege  of 
Augusta,  272;  mentioned,  296;  is 
not  promoted,  becomes  dissatisfied 
and  resigns,  620. 

Rudulph,  Captain  Michael,  80 ;  takes 
part  in  an  attempt  upon  George- 
town,   86,    87,    88;    occupies    Fort 


Granby  upon  surrender  of  Maxwell, 
239;  Fort  Cornwallis  at  Augusta 
surrendered  to,  273;  capture  of  gal- 
ley in  Ashley  River,  613,  614 ;  volun- 
teers on  special  service,  623. 

Rugeley,  Colonel  Rowland,  captured 
by  Washington,  12. 

Rutherford,  General  Griffith,  of 
North  Carolina,  mentioned,  446; 
Pickens  applies  to,  for  cooperation 
against  the  Cherokees,  624;  does 
not  come,  625. 

Rutherford,    ,    Major,  killed  at 

Eutaw,  461. 

Rutledge,  Edward,  released  from  St. 
Augustine,  writes  to  Washington  urg- 
ing cooperation  of  French  fleet  to  re- 
cover Charlestown,  481 ;  member  of 
the  Jacksonborough  legislature,  557 ; 
member  of  privy  council,  572;  com- 
missioner to  negotiate  agreement  to 
check  plunder  on  either  side,  658, 659. 

Rutledge,  Hugh,  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  562 ;  lays 
before  the  House  Banks  &  Co.'s 
proposition  to  feed  army,  682. 

Rutledge,  Governor  John,  mentioned, 
12;  informs  Sumter  of  Greene's 
arrival,  59 ;  Greene  writes  him,  60 ; 
appoints  Pickens  brigadier-general, 
121 ;  puts  Sumter  in  command  of 
all  state  militia,  proceeds  to  Phila- 
delphia, 139,  140 ;  his  letter  to  Mar- 
ion on  subject,  140;  Greene  ap- 
peals to,  for  assistance,  before 
Ninety  Six,  286;  mentioned,  324; 
letter  to  Sumter,  422 ;  not  yet  re- 
turned to  State,  426,  430 ;  proposes 
to  convene  General  Assembly  at 
Camden,  495;  but  decides  upon 
Jacksonborough,  496;  Greene  ad- 
dresses him  upon  subject  of  employ- 
ing negroes  in  the  army,  499,  500 ; 
reserves  it  for  consideration  of 
the  Assembly,  501 ;  his  dictatorial 
powers  referred  to,  508;  sketch  of 
his  career  since  fall  of  Charlestown, 
509,  510,  511 ;  confers  with  Sumter, 
511,  512;  reorganizes  militia  and 
State  troops,  513,  514,  515,  516;  is- 
sues proclamation  as  to  currency, 
516;    writes  to   Marion    forbidding 


T82 


INDEX 


substitutes  for  militia  duty,  517; 
impresses  indigo,  520;  issues  proc- 
lamation in  regard  to  Tories,  its 
effects  considered,  521,  522,  523,  524, 
525,  526;  issues  proclamation  for 
election  of  new  Assembly  to  meet 
at  Camden,  528;  mentioned,  519, 
550;  issues  writs  of  election  to 
brigadiers  with  letter  of  instructions, 
555,  556;  member  of  the  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  557 ;  mentioned, 
560 ;  delivers  his  speech  as  governor 
to  Assembly,  563 ;  same  quoted, 
563,  564,  565,  567;  elected  delegate 
to  Congress,  572;  again,  685;  men- 
tioned, 726,  727,  728,  ^33. 

Sampit,  affair  at,  118;  mentioned,  538, 
551,  723. 

Saratoga,  victory  at,  mentioned,  36. 

Sarrazin,  Jonathan,  prisoner  in  prov- 
ost, 36d. 

Saunders,  Captain  John  (Br.),  cor- 
respondence with  Marion  and  Bal- 
four in  regard  to  Postell,  152,  153, 
154. 

Saunders,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Saunders,  Roger  Parker,  commis- 
sioner to  carry  out  agreement  be- 
tween Governor  Mathews  and  Gen- 
eral Leslie  to  prevent  plunder  on 
either  side  upon  evacuation,  658, 
659,  660;  recalled,  661. 

Saxon,  Yancey,  killed  by  "Bloody 
Bill  "  Cuningham  at  Hayes's  Station, 
475. 

Scott,  General  Charles,  of  Virginia, 
seizes  and  opens  packages  sent  by 
Major  Forsyth  to  Hunter,  679;  ex- 
poses fraud  to  Governor  Harrison 
of  Virginia,  680. 

Scottowe,  Thomas,  name  not  found 
in  Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Scottowe,  Samuel,  on  prison  ship,  359 ; 
mentioned,  585. 

Screven,  Colonel,  takes  part  in  fight 
at  Wambaw,  603,  604. 

Scysia, ,  kills  Turner,  a  Tory  pris- 
oner, fpr  the  alleged  ill-treatment  of 
his  ^¥4#e,  631. 

Seavers,  Abraham,  on  prison  ship,  a59. 

Selden,  Lieutenant,  of  Virginia,  96. 

Sorvier,  Colonel,  mentioned,  1, 55, 223 ; 


starts  to  reenforce  Greene,  but  halts 
and  returns,  414;  joins  Greene,  483; 
ordered  to  Marion,  484;  abandons 
Marion, 487 ;  mentioned,  553 ;  Pickens 
applies  to  for  cooperation  against 
Cherokees,  624 ;  does  not  come,  625 ; 
mentioned,  719. 

Shelburne,  Earl  of,  speech  of,  in  House 
of  Lords  upon  execution  of  Colonel 
Hayne,  404. 

Shelby,  Colonel  Isaac,  mentioned,  1, 
55,  223 ;  starts  to  reenforce  Greene, 
but  halts  and  returns  to  North  Caro- 
lina, 414 ;  joins  Greene,  483 ;  ordered 
to  Marion,  484;  abandons  Marion, 
487 ;  mentioned,  553,  719. 

Shelby,  Captain  Moses,  with  Carr  sur- 
prises and  defeats  Tories  under  Dill, 
264. 

Sheridan,  Major,  New  York  Volun- 
teers, conduct  of  at  Eutaw,  453,  455, 
463;  mentioned,  737. 

Shrewsbury,  Stephen,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Simkins,  Arthur,  member  Jackson- 
borough  legislature,  559. 

Simons,  Cornet  James,  takes  part  in 
capture  of  Loyalists  at  Williamson's 
plantation,  25;  rallies  survivors  of 
Washington's  command  at  Eutaw, 
454 ;  is  wounded,  461. 

Simons,  Lieutenant,  killed  at  Eutaw, 
461. 

Simons,  Captain  John,  killed  at 
Quinby  bridge,  100. 

Simons,  Colonel  Maurice,  name  found 
in  Amercement  Act,  587. 

Simpson,  James,  iutendent  of  police 
(Br.) ,  assurances  to  Colonel  Hajme, 
131;  mentioned,  365;  name  not  in 
Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Singleton,  Lieutenant,  commands  ar- 
tillery, Quinby  bridge,  332. 

Singleton,  Captain,  mentioned,  163; 
at  Quinby  bridge,  338. 

Singleton,  Colonel  John,  Greene's 
army  encamps  on  his  plantation, 
343. 

Singleton,  Ripley,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Skinner,  Dr.  Alexander,  Lee's  Legion, 
80. 

Skirving,   Colonel,    his   case   delays 


INDEX 


783 


exchange  of  prisoners,  364;   army 

posted  on  his  plantation,  501. 
Small  wood,      General,      mentioned, 

12. 
Smith,  Lieutenant  ( Va.) ,  takes  part  in 

capture  of  British  galley,  513. 
Smith,     Captain     (Va.),    posted     at 

Greene's  headquarters,  622. 
Smith,   George,  hung  by  Browne  at 

Wiggins's  Hill,  261. 
Smith,  Captain  James  (Md.),  at  battle 

of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  194. 
Smith,     Captain     John     Carraway, 

Marion's  brigade,  100;   takes  part 

in  fight   at   Tydiman's  plantation, 

506. 
Smith,  Josiah,  member  privy  council, 

685. 
Smith,     Kev.     Robert,     mentioned, 

5!X). 
Smith,  Samuel,  on  prison  ship,  359; 

member  privy  council,  572. 
Smith,  "William  Loughton,  mentioned, 

731. 
Smyzer    (or     Smizer),     Lieutenant, 

Marion's  brigade,  101 ;  drowned  es- 
caping  from   defeat  at  Tydiman's 

plantation,  605. 
Sneed,  Major,  of  Virginia,  takes  part 

in  battle  of  Eutaw,  448. 
Sneling,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 
Snipes,  Captain  William  Clay,  with 

Peter  Horry,  in  affair  with  Gainey, 

84;  mentioned,  101. 
Snow  Island,  Marion  rendezvous  men- 
tioned, 26,  77,  78,  83,  86,  104,  111, 

118,  119,  537,  538,  551,  723. 
Snowden,  Lieutenant  Jonathan,  Lee's 

Legion,  80. 
Snyder,  Paul,  on  prison  ship,  359. 
Spragins,    Lieutenant,    wounded    at 

Eutaw,  4()1. 
Stafford,  William,  member  of  Jack- 

soiiborough  legislature,  558. 
Stamp  Act,  mentioned,  707,  708, 
Stark,     Captain     John,     mentioned, 

369. 
Starke,  Colonel  Robert,  imprisoned  in 

provost,  .'>()!). 
Starke,  Robert,  a  lad,  369. 
Si.  Clair,  Major-General,  despatches 

sent    to   hasten    his  advance,  498; 


arrives  and  forms  junction  with 
Greene,  593. 

Steuben,  Baron,  mentioned,  7,  9,  81, 
82. 

Stevens  Creek,  affair  at,  476. 

Stevens,  Daniel,  imprisoned  in  prov- 
ost, 369. 

Stevens,  William,  of  Saluda,  in  Con- 
fiscation Act,  585. 

Stevenson,  John,  on  prison  ship,  354. 

Steward,  Lieutenant,  killed  at  Eu- 
taw, 461. 

Stormont,  Lord,  speech  of,  in  House 
of  Lords  on  Colonel  Hayne's  case, 
404. 

Stuart,  Colonel  Alexander,  command- 
ing 3d  Regiment  advances  toward 
Orangeburgh,  307,  308 ;  recalled, 
310 ;  again  advances,  312 ;  joins 
Rawdon  at  Orangeburgh,  313,  325; 
succeeds  Rawdon  hi  command,  424 ; 
moves  toward  McCord's  Ferry,  424; 
provisions  fail  him,  435;  his  move- 
ments thereon,  ibid. ;  threatened  by 
Marion,  437;  exact  strength  of,  at 
Eutaw  not  known,  443;  commands 
at  battle  of  Eutaw,  446,  463 ;  himself 
wounded,  461 ;  retreats  to  Fair  Lawn, 
4(j4 ;  turns  over  command  to  Doyle, 
466 ;  checks  Marion  at  Wan  toot,  485 ; 
his  orderly  falls  into  Marion's 
hands,  487;  draws  in  his  forces  to 
Charlestown,  488;  insolent  com- 
munication to  Marion,  489 ;  men- 
tioned, 490;  relieved  by  Leslie,  492; 
mentioned,  543,  544,  727. 

Sumner,  General  Jethro  (N.  C),  com- 
mands North  Carolina  Continentals 
at  Eutaw,  446,  448,  452 ;  despatched 
to  put  doA\ni  Gainey,  466. 

Sumter,  General  Thomas,  mentioned, 
1 ;  censured  for  not  supporting 
Greene,  5<);  same  considered,  ibid.; 
Greene's  singular  letter  to,  60,  61, 
62,  63,  64,  65;  Greene  rides  to  con- 
sult, 95 ;  his  letter  to  Sumter  in  re- 
gard to  operations,  98,  99;  Greene 
writes  to  him,  104,  105;  his  plans, 
ibid.;  attacks  Fort  Granby,  105, 10(); 
assails  post  at  Thomson's  plantation, 
107 ;  captures  train  with  supplies,  and 
convoy,  107, 108 ;  is  betrayed  by  guide 


784 


INDEX 


and  loses  capture,  108 ;  attacks  Fort 
Watson,  is  repulsed,  109;  retires  to 
High  Hills  of  San  tee,  109, 110 ;  writes 
to  Marion  asking  conference,  110, 
111 ;  is  intercepted  by  Major  Fraser, 
110;  injustice  of  historians  to,  111; 
mentioned,  137;  Governor  Rutledge 
puts  him  in  command  of  all  State 
militia,  139,  140;  appeals  to  Marion 
for  conference,  but  fails  to  obtain  it, 
141 ;  Greene  writes  to  him  on  subject 
of  plunder,  142 ;  his  letter  to  Marion 
on  same  subject  and  upon  reorgani- 
zation of  militia,  143;  his  scheme 
for  same,  144,  145,  146,  147;  will 
not  admit  defeat  at  Guilford  Court- 
house, 157;  sends  letter  to  Greene 
by  Wade  Hampton,  158 ;  mentioned, 
160;  Greene's  letter  informing  him 
of  movement  into  South  Carolina, 
162, 163;  not  responsible  for  divulge- 
ment  of  same,  163,  164,  165;  Hyrne 
brings  letter  from  Greene  to,  166; 
confers  with  him  thereon,  167;  his 
report  and  Sumter's  reply  misun- 
derstood by  Greene,  168,  169,  173; 
Greene's  criticism  of,  177;  luke- 
warm report  of,  to  Washington  and 
Reed,  178,  179,  180,  181;  letter  to 
Greene  by  Captain  McBee,  182,  183; 
Greene's  letter  of  instructions  to 
him,  185 ;  his  letter  to  Greene,  ibid. ; 
Greene's  disparagement  of,  in  letter 
to  Reed,  202;  Greene  summonses 
him  to  join  him,  204;  but  upon  his 
representation  allowed  to  proceed 
against  enemy's  communications, 
206,  207,  208,  209,  210;  charges 
against  him  growing  thereout,  211, 
212,  213,  214;  mentioned,  223,  225, 
226;  brilliant  successes  of,  229; 
raids  in  Rawdon's  rear,  229;  applies 
to  Greene  for  a  field-piece,  ibid. ;  in- 
vests Granby,  makes  dash  at  Orange- 
burgh,  which  he  takes,  229,  230; 
proceeds  to  Fort  Motte,  230;  raids 
the  country  below  the  Santee,  231 ; 
mentioned,  239;  Greene  calls  on  him 
for  horses,  240, 241 ;  offended  at  Lee's 
conduct  at  Fort  Granby,  tenders 
his  resignation ,  242, 243, 244, 245,  246 ; 
resignation  not  accepted,  Greene's 


letter  on  subject,  246,  247 ;  his  good 
work  shown,  250;  advises  concen- 
tration of  forces  and  attack  upon 
Rawdon,  251;  overruled,  254,  255; 
mentioned,  279, 285 ;  Greene  calls  on, 
to  join  him,  286;  reports  arrival  of 
British  reenforcements  at  Charles- 
to\NTi,  287,  288,  289,  290 ;  at  Granby, 
294;  mentioned,  296,  304;  prepares 
for  expedition  to  Low-Country,  307; 
his  conduct  discussed,  311, 312 ;  sum- 
moned to  join  Greene,  313;  joins 
him,  316;  expedition  to  Low-Coun- 
try, 323-343;  mentioned,  380,  413; 
Greene  conjures  new  causes  of  com- 
plaint against,  415-433 ;  constitution 
of  his  command,  424;  absent  from 
Eutaw  in  consequence  of  his  wound, 
459 ;  mentioned,  483 ;  advances  upon 
enemy,  485;  takes  post  at  Orange- 
burgh,  493 ;  Wade  Hampton  keeps  his 
communication  with  Marion,  ibid.; 
mentioned,  510 ;  brigade  reorganized 
by  Governor  Rutledge,  514;  men- 
tioned, 520 ;  charged  with  duty  of  re- 
ceiving submission  of  Tories,  527; 
resigns,  529 ;  resignation  the  result  of 
cabal  of  Greene  and  Lee,  529,  530, 
631, 532, 533, 534 ;  mentioned,  536, 539, 
545,  547,  553,  554 ;  member  of  Jack- 
sonborough  legislature,  559,562;  his 
course  therein  in  regard  to  General 
Greene,  567, 568 ;  House  commends  his 
conduct,  by  Tory  rumor  he  to  be  can- 
didate of  Back-Country  people  for 
governor,  571 ;  declares  that  he  had 
never  solicited  public  appointment, 
571;  zealously  supports  Governor 
Mathews's  administration,  ibid. ; 
mentioned,  575, 576;  consulted  about 
move  on  Charlestown,  612 ;  opposes 
in  Congress  relief  of  Greene's  estate, 
683,  684;  elected  member  of  Con- 
gress, 685;  on  committee  on  subject 
of  impressments,  687;  mentioned, 
687,  718,  724,  725,  726,  727,  728,  731, 
732,  733,  738. 

Sumter's  Law,  case  involving,  145, 
146,  147. 

Swan,  Major  John  (Md.),  mentioned, 
676. 

Swinton,  Major  Alexander,  Marion's 


INDEX 


785 


brigade,  mentioned,  101;  determines  ; 
to  retreat  with  Marion  into  North  ! 
Carolina,  120 ;  wounded  at  battle  of 
Quiuby  bridge,  338;  mentioned,  340.  [ 

Taite,  Captain,  detailed  to  Morgan's  \ 
command,  10;  takes  part  in  battle  j 
of  Cowpens,  41. 

Tanner,  Leonard,  wounded  at  Wig- 
gins's  Hill,  200. 

Tarleton,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Ban- 
astre,  ordered  over  the  Broad 
River,  his  instructions,  27;  arrives 
on  Pacolet,  applies  to  Cornwallis  for 
reenforceraent,  28 ;  receives  reen- 
forcements,  29 ;  outmanoeuvres  Mor- 
gan and  crosses  Pacolet,  30 ;  attacks 
Morgan  at  Cowpens  and  is  defeated, 
33,  51;  British  angry  thereat,  53; 
mentioned,  90,  92,  93;  Lee's  corps 
mistaken  for  his  legion  at  Pyles's 
defeat,  123,  124,  125;  mentioned, 
291,  541,  545,  710,  719,  721. 

Tarrar's  Spring,  affair  at,  471. 

Taylor,  Colonel  Thomas,  mentioned, 
182,  229;  Sumter  leaves  to  invest 
Granby,  229,  230;  in  Sumter's  ex- 
pedition to  Low-Country,  322 ;  at  the 
battle  of  Quinby  bridge,  337,  339, 
340,  341;  mentioned,  420,  424,  514; 
member  of  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture, 559,  562 ;  mentioned,  574,  717, 
731. 

Taylor,  Paul,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Thomas,  Colonel  John,  in  affair  at 
Bush  River,  209;  mentioned,  514; 
member  of  Jacksonborough  legisla- 
ture, 559 ;  mentioned,  731. 

Thomas,  Colonel  Tristam,  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  5G0. 

Thompson,  Mrs.,  scalped  by  Indians 
at  Go  wen's  old  fort,  478. 

Thompson,  Sir  Benjamin,  Count  Eum- 
ford,  a  new  character  appears  upon 
scene,  sketch  of,  601 ;  organizes 
expedition,  attacks  and  defeats 
Marion's  brigade  in  his  absence,  602, 
603,  604,  605 ;  attacks  and  again 
defeats  Marion's  men,  605;  plans 
expedition  to  surprise  Greene  at 
Ashley  Hall,  606;  failure  of  the 
same,  507 ;  disappears  from  South 
Carolina,  ibid.;  mentioned,  737. 
yoL.  IV.  —  3  E 


Thomson,  Colonel  William,  member 
of  Jacksonborough  legislature,  560. 

Thomson's  Plantation,  affair  at,  107 ; 
mentioned,  537,  538,  551. 

Thomson,  James  Hamden,  conduct  of, 
and  treatment  at  St.  Augustine,  372. 

Thurlow,  Lord,  approves  in  House  of 
Lords  execution  of  Colonel  Hayne, 
405 ;  is  answered  by  Earl  of  Effing- 
ham, 400. 

Tonyn,  Governor  Patrick,  of  Florida, 
sends  flag  to  General  Greene,  con- 
troversy over,  694,  695,  696,  697,  698, 
699;  mentioned,  729. 

Torriano,  Lieutenant,  wounded,  Mar- 
ion grants  jjass  to,  116. 

Toussiger,  James,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Triplett,  Captain  (Va.),  detailed  to 
Morgan's  command,  10;  takes  part 
in  battle  of  Cowpens,  41. 

Truce  arranged  between  Whigs  and 
Tories,  62(),  627. 

Trusler,  William,  killed  at  Quarter 
House,  329. 

Tuft,  commands  party  of  Cherokees  at 
massacre  of  Gowen  Fort,  477. 

TurnbuU,  Lieutenant-colonel  (N.  Y.) , 
mentioned,  737. 

Turner,    Captain ,  command    of 

party  massacred  by  "Bloody  Bill" 
Cunningham,  471,  472,  473. 

Turner  Lieutenant-Colonel  William  J. 
(Tory),  not  named  in  Confiscation 
Act,  586. 

Twiggs,  General  John  (Ga.),  men- 
tioned, 594. 

Tynes,  Colonel  (Tory),  mentioned,  84. 

Valentine,  William  (Tory),  name  in 
Confiscation  Act,  585. 

Vanderhorst,  Arnoldus,  member  of 
the  Jacksonborough  legislature,  557 ; 
mentioned,  574 ;  member  privy  coun- 
cil, 685. 

Vanderhorst,  Major  John,  chosen  to 
command  Marion's  picked  men  in 
combat  with  McLcroth,  102,  103; 
mentioned,  514;  member  of  the 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  557 ; 
mentioned,  574;  on  committee  on 
subject  of  impressments,  687;  men- 
tioned, 718. 

Vardell,  Sergeant,  death  of,  628. 


786 


INDEX 


Vinces,  Fort,  affair  at,  476. 

Vergennes,  Count  De,  mentioned,  496. 

Wadboo,  or  Watboo,  affair  at,  99, 101. 

Wahub's  Plantation,  affair  at,  men- 
tioned, 7oo. 

Wantoot,  Mr.  Ravenel's  plantation, 
Stuart  halts  at,  464;  mentioned,  487, 
488. 

Ward,  John,  in  Confiscation  Act,  586. 

Ward,  John,  commissioner  to  purchase 
estate  for  General  Greene,  574. 

Warham,  Charles,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Warham,  David,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Waring,  Benjamin,  member  privy 
council,  685. 

Waring,  Richard,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Waring,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Washington,  George,  Greene  serves 
under,  and  accepts  appointment  of 
quartermaster  general  at  his  in- 
stance, 3;  supports  Greene,  5;  aj)- 
proves  Greene's  appointment  to 
command  Southern  Department,  6 ; 
his  instructions  to  Greene,  6,  7 ;  men- 
tioned, 54,  58 ;  Greene  appeals  to,  for 
assistance,  413;  arrangements  with 
Rochambeau  for  campaign,  436; 
learns  of  coming  of  second  French 
fleet,  ibid. ;  marches  for  Virginia, 
437 ;  Edward  Rutledge  writes  to, 
urging  cooperation  of  French  fleet 
for  recovery  of  Charlestown,  481; 
urges  same  on  De  Grasse,  482 ;  fall 
of  Comwallis  allows  him  to  send  re- 
enforcements  to  Greene,  483;  Gov- 
ernor Rutledge  represents  affairs  to, 
510;  mentioned,  545,  546,  717. 

Washington,  Colonel  William  A., 
mentioned,  11 ;  captures  Rugeley's 
post,  12 ;  attacks  and  captures  body 
of  Loyalists  at  Hammond's  Store,  23, 
24,  27;  his  cavalry  at  Cowpens,  31; 
takes  part  in  battle,  33,  42,  49,  50 ; 
at  battle  of  Hobkirk's  Hill,  191,  195, 
196;  on  court  of  inquiry  on  Colonel 
Gunby,  198;  want  of  horses,  240; 
Greene's  directions  to,  307,  308; 
summoned  to  join  Greene,  313; 
signs  memorial  to  Greene  urging  re- 
taliation for  execution  of  Colonel 
Hayne,  400;  raids  down  country  and 


captures  prisoner,  434;  watches 
Fair  Lawn,  435;  takes  part  in 
battle  of  Eutaw,  446,  448,  454; 
wounded,  454,  461 ;  mentioned,  55l! 

Waters,  Colonel  Thomas,  head  of 
Indian  banditti  party,  654;  escapes 
Pickens,  654,  655 ;  and  retires  to  St. 
Augustine,  656. 

Waters,  John,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Waties,  Thomas,  Captain  Marion's 
brigade,  101. 

Watson,  Colonel  John  (Br.),  estab- 
lishes post  at  Kelson's  Ferry,  IS; 
ordered  to  move  against  Marion, 
111;  ambuscaded  by  Marion  at 
Wiboo  Swamp,  113;  conflict  with 
Marion  at  Mount  Hope,  115;  at 
Witherspoon's  Ferry,  116, 117;  aban- 
dons the  field,  pursued  by  Marion 
to  Georgetown,  117 ;  again  advances 
to  join  Doyle,  ibid. ;  warned  of  Lee's 
approach,  returns  to  Georgetown, 
172;  again  advances  to  reenforce 
Rawdon,  reaches  Monck's  Corner, 
175, 176;  eludes  Sumter,  Marion,  and 
Lee,  and  joins  Rawdon  at  Camden, 
205,  212,  213,  214,  215;  mentioned, 
226,  251,  537,  538,  510,  723. 

Watson,  Fort,  or  Wright's  Bluff, 
affair  at,  107;  investment  and  cap- 
ture of,  173,  174,  175;  mentioned, 
538,  551,  731. 

Watson,  Captain  Michael,  takes  part 
with  Butler  in  affair  at  Dean 
Swamp,  627,  628;  is  killed,  628. 

Watts,  Captain,  killed  at  Eutaw,  461. 

Waugh,  Lieutenant  (Br.),  killed  at 
Quarter  House,  328. 

Waxhaws,  affair  at,  183;  mentioned, 
551. 

Wa3rae,  General  Anthony,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, ordered  to  reenforce  Greene, 
but  retained  by  Lafayette  in  Vir- 
ginia, 414 ;  despatches  sent  to  hasten 
his  advance,  498;  arrives  and  sent 
to  Georgia,  594 ;  is  attacked  by  Creek 
Indians,  653;  commands  advance 
upon  taking  possession  on  evacua- 
tion of  Charlestown,  671,  672;  de- 
clares army  better  clad  than  any 
other,  680,  730,  731. 

Welch,  George,  on  prison  ship,  359. 


INDEX 


787 


"Wells  &  Son,  publishers  i?o?/aZ  Gazette, 
required  to  publish  Balfour's  com- 
munication to  prisoners,  359. 

Wheeler,  Benjamin,  on  prison  ship, 
;?59. 

White,  Colonel  Anthony  Walton,  men- 
tioned, 11;  rejoins  the  army,  59-4; 
justifies  practice  of  officers  taking 
horses  belonging  to  public,  6G5. 

White,  Colonel,  takes  part  with  Roe- 
buck in  routing  enemy  at  Mud  Lick, 
114. 

White,  Isaac,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

White,  Sims,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Wiboo  Swamp,  affair  at,  113;  men- 
tioned, 171,  537,  551,  723. 

Wiggins's  Hill,  affair  at,  259, 2G0, 261, 
262 ;  mentioned,  537,  538,  551,  574. 

Wilkes,  John,  mentioned,  707,  708. 

Wilkie,  William,  on  prison  ship,  359. 

Wilkinson,  James,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Wilkinson,  Colonel  of  militia,  514. 

Wilkinson,  Morton,  exile,  member  of 
Jacksonborough  legislature,  557 ; 
member  of  privy  council,  572 ;  com- 
missioner to  purchase  estate  for 
General  Greene,  574. 

Williams,  Britton,  hung  by  Browne 
at  Wiggins's  Hill,  261. 

Williams,  Daniel,  hung  by  "  Bloody 
Bill"  Cuningham,  Hayes's  Station, 
475. 

Williams,  Hezekiah,  Colonel  (Tory), 
attacks  Whig  militia,  434,  435 ; 
mentioned,  467;  takes  Vince's  Fort, 
476. 

Williams,  Colonel  James,  mentioned, 
1. 

Williams,  Joseph,  killed  by  "  Bloody 
Bill  "  Cuningham,  Hayes's  Station, 
475. 

Williams,  Colonel  Otho  Holland 
(Md.),  given  commar.d  consolidated 
regiments,  11 ;  at  battle  of  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  191, 193;  prepares  memorial  to 


Greene  urging  retaliation  for  exe- 
cution of  Hayne,  400 ;  at  battle  of 
Eutaw,  448,  452;  commands  Con- 
tinental army,  in  absence  of  Huger, 
459;  wounded  (?),461. 

Williamson,  General  Andrew,  at- 
tempts made  to  recapture  him,  21 ; 
is  recaptured  but  escapes  and  makes 
his  way  to  Charlestown,  21,  22. 

Williamson,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  Mi- 
cajah,  of  Georgia,  commands  in 
absence  of  Clarke,  258 ;  marches  to 
Augusta,  263. 

Wilmot,  Captain  (Md.),  put  in  charge 
of  critical  service,  620;  killed,  last 
blood  shed  in  Revolution  in  South 
Carolina,  667. 

Wilson,  Lieutenant  (Va.),  killed  at 
Eutaw,  460. 

Winn,  Colonel  Richard,  mentioned, 
1,  149,  229, 514 ;  member  of  Jackson- 
borough legislature,  559,  562 ;  men- 
tioned, 731. 

Winston,  William,  lieutenant  of  Lee's 
Legion,  80. 

Witherspoon,  Captain  Gavin,  Mar- 
ion's brigade,  100;  mentioned,  172. 

Witherspoon's  Ferry,  affair  at,  110; 
mentioned,  723. 

V/omen  of  Carolina,  their  conduct, 
370,  371. 

Woodford,  Lieutenant  (Md.) ,  wounded 
at  Eutaw,  460. 

Wright,  Alexander,  British  commis- 
sioner to  negotiate  agreement  to 
check  plunder  on  either  side,  558,559. 

Wright's  Bluff,  see  Fort  Watson,  109; 
mentioned,  638,  551. 

Wright,  Captain,  of  Wasraassaw, 
killed  at  Quarter  House,  328. 

Yeadon,  Richard,  on  prison  ship, 
359. 

Yorktown,  surrender  of,  483. 

Yon,  Thomas,  on  prison  ship,  3.59. 

Youngblood,  Captain,  negotiates 
truce  with  Tories,  627. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA  UNDER  THE 
PROPRIETARY  GOVERNMENT,  1670-1719 

By  EDWARD  flcCRADY,  a  Member  of  the  Bar  of  Charleston,  S.C,  and  President  of 
the  Historical  Society  of  South  Carolina.  8vo.  Cloth,  gilt  top.  pp.  xxi  +  762.  Price, 
$3.50  net. 

"  Unquestionably  a  valuable  contribution  to  American  historical  literature.  It  covers  a 
field  that  no  one  else  has  hitherto  attempted  to  adequately  treat  of.  It  evidences  a  vast  amount 
of  research  into  musty  archives  and  an  instinct  that  guided  the  author  to  a  discriminating 
selection  of  material.  .  .  .  The  future  must  surely  be  indebted  to  Mr.  McCrady  in  no 
mean  degree."  —  St.  Louis  Globe  Democrat. 

"  An  exhaustive  study  of  the  period  to  which  it  is  devoted,  and  in  the  field  of  American 
colonial  history  is  fairly  to  be  called  a  contribution  of  the  first  order."  —  TAe  Nation. 

"  Colonel  McCrady  has  made  a  notable  contribution  to  American  historical  literature,  and  has 
written  one  of  the  best  books  that  treat  of  Colonial  times.  It  is  a  treasury  of  learned  research 
and  a  worthy  monument  to  the  State  to  whose  eloquent  and  tragic  story  he  has  devoted  his 
pen."  —  New  York  Times. 

"  The  spirit  of  the  entire  work  is  calm  and  judicial;  its  estimates  of  men  are  discriminating, 
and  the  style,  which  is  always  excellent,  rises  occasionally  to  the  display  of  not  a  little  vigor 
and  picturesqueness  of  statement.  This  is  especially  marked  in  the  later  chapters.  The  author 
is  imbued  throughout  with  the  true  historical  spirit  which  desires  above  all  else  to  set  down 
things  as  they  actually  occurred."  —  Boston  Transcript. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH   CAROLINA  UNDER  THE 
ROYAL  GOVERNMENT,  1719-1776. 

By  EDWARD  McCRADY,  a  Member  of  the  Bar  of  Charleston,  S.C,  and  President  of 
the  Historical  Society  of  South  Carolina;  author  of  "  The  History  of  South  Carolina  under 
the  Proprietary  Government."     8vo.     Cloth,  gilt  top.     pp.  xxviii  +  847.     Price,  $3.50  «^/. 

"  Seldom  has  such  careful  research,  so  much  insight,  and  such  breadth  of  comprehension 
been  applied  to  the  delineation  of  any  part  of  our  colonial  history.  The  800  pages  comprised 
in  this  volume  before  us  represent  an  immense  amount  of  first  hand  investigation,  of  faithful 
comparison  of  authorities,  of  studious  selection  and  condensation."  —  M.  W.  H.  in  The  New 
York  Sun. 

"  Mr.  McCrady  gives  a  full  account  of  the  settlement  and  development  of  the  country, 
together  with  sketches  of  the  social  life,  which  early  became  marked,  near  the  coast  at  least,  by 
ease  and  comfort,  due  to  the  wealth  acquired  through  a  profitable  foreign  commerce.  The 
author  understands  well  how  to  intersperse  lighter  details  with  matters  of  greater  importance, 
so  as  to  relieve  his  work  of  any  suspicion  of  dryness."  —  Providence  yournal. 

"  A  highly  creditable  performance,  showing  a  most  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  sub- 
ject."—  New  York  Times. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66   FIFTH   AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


THE  HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA  IN  THE 
REVOLUTION,  1775-1780 

By  EDWARD  flcCRADY,  a  Member  of  the  Bar  of  Charleston,  S.C,  and  President  of 
the  Historical  Society  of  South  Carolina;  author  of  "  The  History  of  South  Carolina  under 
the  Proprietary  Government,"  "  The  History  of  South  Carolina  under  the  Royal  Govern- 
ment," etc.     8vo.     Cloth,  gilt  top.     pp.  xxxiii  +  899.     Price,  $3.50  «^/. 

"  Mr.  McCrady's  volumes  are  pretty  certain  to  remain  the  authoritative  history 
of  the  South  Carolina  colony  for  some  time  to  come,  ...  a  valuable  and  needed 
addition  to  American  historical  literature."  —  The  Nation. 

"  What  was  said  on  a  former  occasion  may  be  here  reaffirmed  with  emphasis,  — 
that  seldom  has  such  careful  research,  so  much  insight,  and  such  breadth  of  com- 
prehension, been  applied  to  the  delineation  of  any  part  of  our  colonial  history." 

—  New  York  Sun. 


THE  AMERICAN  COMMONWEALTH 

By  JAflES  BRYCE,  author  of  "  The  Holy  Roman  Empire,"  M.P.  for  Aberdeen.  In  two 
volumes.  Third  edition,  completely  revised  throughout,  with  additional  chapters.  Crown 
8vo.    Cloth,  gilt  tops. 

Vol.1.     The  National  Government  —  The  State  Government,  pp.  xix  +  724.   Price,  $1.75  «f/. 

Vol.  II.  The  Party  System  —  Public  Opinion — Illustrations  and  Reflections  —  Social  Insti- 
tutions,    pp.  904.     Price,  $2.25  net. 

The  two  volumes  in  a  box,  $4.00  net. 

"  It  is  not  too  much  to  call  "  The  American  Commonwealth  "  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  additions  to  political  and  social  science  which  this  generation  has 
seen.  It  has  done,  and  will  continue  to  do,  a  great  work  in  informing  the  world 
concerning  the  principles  of  this  government."  —  Philadelphia  Evening-  Telegraph. 

"  No  enlightened  American  can  desire  a  better  thing  for  his  country  than  the 
widest  diffusion  and  the  most  thorough  reading  of  Mr.  Bryce's  impartial  and  pene- 
trating work." —  Literary  World. 

"  The  great  quality  of  his  work  is  that  it  has  been  prepared  with  a  sense  of 
justice  and  a  fairness  of  statement  which  makes  it  an  authority  not  only  for  foreign- 
ers, but  for  native  Americans.  It  has  been  and  will  long  continue  to  be  the  book 
that  all  young  men  will  study  as  an  introduction  to  their  knowledge  of  American 
institutions,  and  it  will  do  more  to  form  the  political  education  of  the  next  genera- 
tion than  any  other  kind  of  teaching."  —  Boston  Herald. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

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